> Producing... what, exactly? Right, "consumer goods." Or upstream supply chains for said, or machines to produce the machines that build said, or... etc.
Sorry to ruin your mic drop moment, but...
Of course, there is no way for individuals to know how much pollution was involved in the manufacture of the item, so the fact that they're manufacturing things that ultimately bottom out in consumer goods and services doesn't actually do anything. Even if you really want to minimize your footprint, you basically have to trust the packaging about whether the product is actually "green" ("greenwashing" exists as a term precisely because the packaging can't be trusted).
But you can't cheat carbon pricing. And consumers don't even need to care about the environment--carbon pricing aligns their economic interests with the interests of the climate, so the cheapest products will be the greenest. Of course, that really puts a damper on the fun for those of us who like to make a big show about how much we sacrifice for the environment.
> packagers could also use easier-to-recycle plastic, or raise prices to pay for collecting and sorting
But does that actually help the environment, or just cause worse environmental impact?
The dollar value of something is a good approximation of the environmental damage. Spending more on something causes environmental damage, for an average products. Greenwashing is a problem: when you buy that expensive green product, the outcome can often be worse for the environment than the cheaper “non-green” product.
> perhaps one could upsell this as "truly green manufacturing" since there would be no environmental byproducts to affect Earth
Except for the massive byproducts created on earth to get through the "more expensive" phase. It would be deeply deceptive and cynical to sell that as "green", surpassing even today's deceptive selling of carbon capture and storage technology on fossil fuel power plants.
>Absolutely. If your customers start choosing you rather than your competitors due to your green credentials, then in can lead to more profit.
Yeah, that's not gonna happen either. That will be the last concern of the majority of consumers...
And of course companies need to sabotage their sales (tell customers "just keep upgrading your existing model, buy less, etc") to get those actual (not ecology-theater) green credentials, which no company and no competitors are gonna do either.
> Companies should buy things that people want that produce less waste (yes this then drives cost up and profits down), consolidating physical services (it, printing, office space etc.) and using recycled products by preference (again good recycled paper is not brown toilet paper and can even be given to clients).
Yes, and the goal of carbon accounting is basically to give actual data about which of these things offer the better trade off between the goal of reducing emissions and keeping the lights on in your business.
The exercise is only as useful as the actions it enables. Short of absolutes ("just close shop ! The greenest form of transportation is, after all, the hearse") or "one size fits all" solutions, there is some level of accounting that's needed.
The biggest risk, of course, is that the customer hides all information about its emission and just wants you to package a shiny report to fuel the marketing department's greenwashing op.
I'll soon be working for one of bend competitors, it seems, so I'll get to see how it goes...
> Of course not, but they do actively make decisions based on profit over sustainability.
and that's what they're supposed to do. Make the most profits while abiding by the law. As consumers start caring more about sustainable supply chains so will producers. When their profits get hurt because consumers choose a more sustainable product, then you'll see change. As long as consumers don't care and just want the cheapest thing (which unfortunately has been the great majority of people for the past 100 years) the producers won't care either
>Yes, because carbon isn't priced into the economy, and corporations lobby to maintain that status quo.
I don't disagree that corporations are blameworthy by lobbying against climate change legislation. That said, you're changing the topic here. The entirety of that sentence was about the "lack of climate-friendly options" and the comment I was replying to was talking about "a society where carbon emissions are unavoidable".
>Moreover, consumers can't choose between "cheap" and "environmentally friendly" because corporations don't publish information about the carbon footprint of their products
Is this really an issue? Just assume anything that doesn't have strongly worded environmental claims is not environmentally friendly. Given that a supermajority of consumers care about the environment (at least in the abstract), if a product is actually environmentally friendly, it's probably going to be predominantly labeled.
> If you hold them responsible, whatever that means, they're almost guaranteed to pass on the extra costs to the consumer, leading to reduced demand and less utility distributed to the end recipient.
This is precisely the point. Let's face it, most people will buy what's bad for the environment if the thing is convenient. If the thing is no longer offered, or too expensive, they will pay the premium or buy something else.
We can relearn to live without fresh fruits in winter, or cheap Asian clothing. It will be a step backwards for the comforts of our modern world, but also a step backwards from worldwide disaster.
I'm guessing they mean greenwashing statements about lower CO2 emissions glosses over more "traditional" pollution as heavy metals, organic solvents, SO2, NOx. Taming overconsumption is greener than finding ways to marginally reduce per unit emissions on ever more industrial production.
that just goes back to your previous comment. There's nothing about consumers that require them to emit greenhouse gasses, but they do so because it's the cheapest.
>they will proceed to destroy the environment because short term profits are more important than long term survival.
they won't emit greenhouse gasses if there's a market for non greenhouse gas emitting products. See for instance, all the GMO-free/organic/vegan/free-range/fair trade products at your local supermarket. I'm not sure about all the labels, but I know for a fact that organic products have better margins than conventional ones.
Why would firms spearheading sustainable practices not publicise their good work? It’s a question that puzzles Professor Steve Evans, director of research in industrial sustainability at Cambridge University’s Institute for Manufacturing, who suggests that such examples are widespread. He believes this stems from a common perception that there must be some kind of downside to the introduction of sustainable practices: either a reduction in product quality, or an increase in the price of manufacturing, or both.
That definitely helps and I don't want to imply otherwise or say that you shouldn't buy green products. But it is nowhere near enough.
For products with no green alternative, what do you expect people to do? How to do you compare the supply chains of products given they are intentionally as opaque as possible.
Everything is shipped over polluting airplanes stored in polluting plastic containers and manufactured with polluting nonrenewable power.
Not to mention there are other ethical concerns to care about. I don't want to support companies with bad labor practices either. But once you filter out the companies doing obviously horrible things the remaining list is terribly short.
And I shouldn't have to worry about this! It's not my job to audit every company. If you can't make a product without shoving externalities on everyone else you shouldn't be making a product, period.
The normal solution people have been hoping for is regulations: a carbon tax makes so much sense, as does outright banning particularly harmful practices like we have with old refrigerants. But this hasn't worked yet, and a wishy washy consumer-driven market solution hasn't worked either
> This is the elephant in the room that most consumer goods companies don’t want to talk about
If it was just companies not wanting to talk about this, things would be fine. Problem is that neither policymakers, nor common citizens want to talk about this apart from a miniscule minority. This includes the overwhelming majority of those who claim to espouse eco-friendly values and to be willing to make lifestyle changes to stick to them. If you're not buying less new things, including e.g. doing a house renovation using new materials, you're almost certainly far less eco-friendly than the less wealthy who can't afford these things in the first place. One might try to placate their conscience by buying indulgences in the form of donations to climate causes but this doesn't really work.
Even what's commonly thought to be the biggest elephant in the room, "having kids is the worst thing you can do for the environment", is all but a sibling of the "making things is extremely bad" elephant, as the former is bad only because of the latter. If youre raising your kids in the woods living off the land like hunter-gatherers, or if you're raising them at the wealth level of the average Sierra Leonean child, having one isn't bad for the environment all.
In my experiencing greenwashing is just as likely to be used to shame normal consumer behavior into reducing costs for businesses (do you really want those plastic utensils with your takeout? Do you really need to use that much water in your hotel room? Do you really need fresh towels every day?) as it is to actually help the environment.
Most of the time corporations claim to be doing something in a carbon-neutral way it's because they are purchasing offsets where you just have to believe that they are actually computing the carbon costs appropriately and the offsets are "real" anyway.
> Even if you go vegan, thrift all your clothes and minimize your consumption, you have such a tiny footprint compared to corporations that naturally value profit over the environment.
If more people thrifted, went vegan, and minimised their consumption, it would shrink the footprint of these corporations as well. These things don't all exist in a vacuum. Shipping/manufacturing companies pollute the earth shipping/manufacturing things for consumers.
Now, it's not to say that these businesses shouldn't be held accountable, but people need to take some personal responsibility too. Once regulatory action passes, and corporations are forced to abide by environmentally conscious laws, consumers will be forced to be less consumeristic just by force of economics. It'll come down to consumers in one way or another.
Sorry to ruin your mic drop moment, but...
Of course, there is no way for individuals to know how much pollution was involved in the manufacture of the item, so the fact that they're manufacturing things that ultimately bottom out in consumer goods and services doesn't actually do anything. Even if you really want to minimize your footprint, you basically have to trust the packaging about whether the product is actually "green" ("greenwashing" exists as a term precisely because the packaging can't be trusted).
But you can't cheat carbon pricing. And consumers don't even need to care about the environment--carbon pricing aligns their economic interests with the interests of the climate, so the cheapest products will be the greenest. Of course, that really puts a damper on the fun for those of us who like to make a big show about how much we sacrifice for the environment.
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