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Environmentally Profitable
lemmingEffect writes: "Came across this NYT article about how many companies are finding unexpected cost-savings for using more environmentally-friendly manufacturing processes and materials. Kinda like getting paid to clean your room--sure would have made me happier as a kid. =)"
As long as you don't go beyond what technology can reasonably accomplish, environmentally friendly processes are usually going to be more efficient. And more efficient processes are usually going to be cheaper, at least over the long term.
The problem is when you try to get too far ahead of existing technology. Then you wind up with kludged-together stuff that doesn't work right. A good example is the too-early adoption of electronic engine controls by Detroit in the 1970s. In principle, it was a great idea. In practice, the technology wasn't robust enough yet, and U.S. cars suffered reliability problems for years as a result.
(They're still behind Japanese and German cars, but not by much -- in fact, a crappy Chevy today is considerably more reliable than the "bulletproof" Toyotas of the late '80s.)
InstaPundit! Ahead of the Curve Since 30 Minutes Ago
The reason for this is simple - usage of anything is environmentally damaging to some degree. By reducing waste we reduce environmental damage. Once these big gains run out, and we are faced with the hard decisions about cutting usage, not just wasteful usage, it will actually start costing money to be more environmentally protective.
Its a bit like the UK record on CO2 emmissions - by closing all the coal fired power stations we cut billions of tonnes of CO2 emmissions. But our energy usage continues to rise - to cut further we need to cut usage - MUCH harder than simply switching fuels. Sending the HP toner carts back is one thing - using less of them quite another.
The world is not saved because a few corps stop throwing out all the half full cans of solvent at the end of each day. We're dooomed! we're all dooomed.
Too bad that, in most cases, companies don't clean themselves up; they convince local government to establish c o r p o r a t e 'wealthfare' programs that force the public's tax money to foot the bill for whatever maintenance and equipment is needed to reach standards set by environmental regulations.
In the late 60's and early 70's, the auto industry tried to prevent or forstall the imposition of pollution controlls by insisting that cleaner engines would be less efficent, and that it would be impossible to actually improve their engine technology. The same year that GM and Ford vehigles took a huge penalty in gas milage and performace because the companies were forced to install catalytic converters, Honda introduced a car that met the pollution restrictions without a converter and with excellent gas mileage and reasonable performace for its displacement. But despite the facts, the result of this public relations temper-tantrum is that ever since, enviornmentalism has been linked with sacrifices in prosperity. This is evident in Bush's energy plan, and the US reluctance to cut CO2 emissions.
It has everything to do with corporate (and occasionally individual) resentment at being told what to do. It has nothing to do with the realities of the industries in question. The association of concervation with decreased prosperity is classic FUD.
It's really sad that this realization is news, but I'm glad a few people are finally waking up to it.
In spite of the suggestions and all the tests that I have made, I have not cavato a spider from the hole.
the new york times is an avowed left-wing rag....
michael is a known greenie tree-hugger
...is it any surprise he would be trying to advance his agenda with favorable articles?
Try this on for size:
The NYT is an avowed big-business-and-corrupt-politics-friendly rag, bought and paid for by advertising dollars, not citizen voices.
So is it any surprise that this article should come out now, now that people are finally starting to freak out about the vast environmental damage done by large corporations run with nothing in mind but their precious, almighty dollar? You mention the hysteria yourself--well, suddenly we're starting to see a rash of media pieces in which the Corporations Aren't The Bad Guys Anymore. No, Really, We're Environmentally Friendly. Now Give Us That Dollar.
The tactic is to keep people from realizing that allowing businesses to get out of the people's control--like we have for the last hundred years--IS the evil, it IS the reason for things like the shitty environment, the unfair economics, even the lack of AIDS medications in poor countries. And it'll only get worse as long as we allow it to go on.
What you're seeing in this article is the scrabbling of the fatcats to make sure that people don't pin them, and their absurd "free trade is free" rhetoric, as the cause of all these awful, pressing problems. This article wasn't advancing the "tree-hugger" agenda, you twerp, though I guess we can't blame you for falling for the angle they obviously wanted you to fall for. No, this piece, and the glut of others like it you'll probably run into, was propping up the big-business agenda--or as they say in Fight Club, "polishing the brass on the Titanic." 'Cause it's all comin' down, baby.
Sara Thustra
"Insustainable" does not mean "can go on until the rich feel they're rich enough".
'Cause it's all comin' down, baby.
I'll take the tyranny of The New York Times and their corporate fatcat sponsors over your brand of "revolution" anyday, since, even though you didn't mention it, your idea of rule by "citizen voices" is to hand power to exactly those few citizen voices who assent to *your* idea of what is right and just, and to hell with anyone else.
We've already tried it that way a number of times--China under Mao, Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. It got pretty ugly, to say the least.
That is a wonderful piece of propaganda. I don't doubt that the examples cited are true; I just notice that they don't cover the vast majority of cases where complying with evironmental regulation costs the company money but the only payback is that they don't get fined by the EPA and one of the company's executives doesn't risk going to jail. It seems to me that the article is obviously attempting to make more environmental regulation tolerable to businesses by offering the false hope (most of the time) that it will help their bottom line. "A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down." The article does admit that not all companies are lucky enough to turn a profit on environmental compliance, but it says it with the same amount of emphasis as a lottery commerical that briefly mentions the real odds of winning.
I want to be clear that I am not against keeping the environment clean, I am just against deluding ourselves into thinking that it is cheaper to have high environmental standards than it is to have low ones (unless you start playing with the accounting system like the article suggests and assigning dollar values to intangible things*). Such delusions are not helpful. I will admit that the article is probably right about environmental groups being more effective at dealing with businesses when they learn to talk the language of businessmen; that was an informative tidbit. Any change a business makes, they will tend to try to find a way to make it profitible, so I am not surprised that as an UNINTENDED SIDE EFFECT of environmental regulation, some businesses have figured out a way to make money off their compliance efforts.
Having made the radical claim that high envirnomental standards cost more to achieve than low standards in most cases; I will admit that there is a link between profit and a clean environment, but in my experience it usually goes the other way. Companies looking for ways to make the most profit tend to also make the most efficient use of raw materials and energy. I have written plenty of capital justifications for changing processes or buying new equipment based on just such efficiency improvements. While the pursuit of profit will help the environment we cannot count on profit alone to keep the country clean. There are too many times where the cheapest thing to do would be to improperly dispose of your waste products. We have to have some judicial, legal, or regulatory measures to prevent abuse of the air and water as waste depositories, but we should not pretend that there is no economic cost to such environmental pursuits.
While they are doing articles on the economics of environmental compliance, I would like to have seen an article on how premature or bad environmental regulation costs money and jobs and consumes extra resources (isn't that what money represents?) and mis-prioritizes dangers. Like the billions of dollars and increadible amounts of man-hours wasted when useful materials like non-amphible asbestos** are banned or restricted because of ignorance (or sensationalism and pandering) in the newsmedia and the regulatory authories.
* I do think we, as a society, need to figure out how to put a dollar value on the cleanliness of our envirnoment so that we can more accurately determine what evnironmental regulations can be justified and which ones will have the most benifit per dollar invested. It seems unusual to me that this is actually being done on a corprate level; but I am happy that someone is thinking about it. I wonder if this is the Megacorp. equivilent of those businesses that sell all sorts of products on the basis that they cost more but "help the rainforest" or the electric companies whose power costs more (i.e. consumes more resources) but don't release as much pollution. Something like, "Well, our stocks don't pay as big a dividens but you can feel better yourself by owning our stock because we consider community issues in our business decisions."
** which was banned along with the "bad" asbestos.
My point was to bring up examples from history of the terrible consequences of ideologically driven revolutions conducted in the name of "the people," but based on a concept of justice decided on unilaterally by an enlightened few. Railing against The New York Times as a tool of the capitalists, and threatening that "it's all comin' down, baby" is a lot closer to the ideals of Maoist revolutions than to democratic ideals of freedom and participatory government.
If you want to ignore history, that's your prerogative, and you do so at your own peril, but the "troll" label is not supposed to be used to silence opinions you disagree with.