If you have a few minutes to spare or are looking for a study break, read this article- its only 3 pages.
Jared Diamond, UCLA geography professor and author of "Guns, Germs and Steal," mobilizes many natural capitalist arguments in this piece. He even praises three corporations--Wal-Mart, Coca-Cola and Chevron-- for their "embrace of environmental concerns," so tread cautiously when reading.... My favorite part of the article concerns the section on Chevron, when he asks Chevron employees and executives how a "publicly traded company could justify to its shareholders its expenditures on the environment" (2). The Chevron employees and executives supply five reasons, most of which derive from a cost-benefit analysis:
"First, oil spills can be horribly expensive: it is far cheaper to prevent them than to clean them up. Second, clean practices reduce the risk that New Guinean landowners become angry, sue for damages [expensive] and close the fields. (The company has been sued for problems in Ecuador that Chevron inherited when it merged with Texaco in 2001.) Next, environmental standards are becoming stricter around the world, so building clean facilities now minimizes having to do expensive retrofitting later. Also, clean operations in one country give a company an advantage in bidding on leases in other countries. Finally, environmental practices of which employees are proud improve morale, help with recruitment and increase the length of time employees are likely to remain at the company" (2).
I love how most of the arguments they mobilize concern the economic benefit of adopting sustainable practices and none of the arguments include respect and protection for all forms of life, like the marine life which they decimate with devastating oil spills. Anyway, check this piece out, if not for the content then for its role as a strategic move in helping to garner support for addressing the issue of climate change, which will be the focus of the Copenhagen climate conference tomorrow.
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