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Article Tag: Sustainability

Fred Pearce’s Greenwash – guardian.co.uk
Fred Pearce
Read the article here. H/t to Current.
Excerpt:

The agricultural giant Monsanto may well still be the world’s most hated company. The company that brought the world Agent Orange, the defoliant of choice in the Vietnam War, followed up a decade ago with a strident push to flood the world with genetically modified crops. It alienated millions – and even its friends and rivals among GM supporters blamed Monsanto’s belligerence for putting back the cause by many years. But I’m going to ignore GMs and talk about water. And belligerence.

In part, no doubt, to help salvage its GM-tarnished reputation, Monsanto now makes great play of its efforts to help engineer a second green revolution built around “sustainability”.

Sustainability is a much-abused term and it infiltrates almost every corner of the company’s website. But to be fair they do try and define what the word means for its business. The company promises that its “sustainable yield initiative” will “reduce by one-third per unit produced the aggregate amount of key resources such as land, water and energy, required to grow crops by 2030.”

Many analysts now see water, rather than land, as the key limitation on growing food to feed a future world population of nine billion in the coming decades. So a third more crop for the same amount of water is a valuable goal. The company trumpets especially its work to engineer more water-efficient maize.

Of course, despite the company’s public pledge to “share knowledge and technology” the company’s corporate aim is to make sure that farmers buy Monsanto-patented water-efficient seeds by the trillion.

But you would expect Monsanto to be especially sensitive about how it manages water in its own farming operations, and particularly to show concern for how neighbouring farmers are facing up to water shortages. Wouldn’t you?

Read more…

Green Inc. – NYT Blog
Kate Galbraith
Read the article here.
Excerpt:

In another sign of the widening divide in the business community over climate change action, Nike announced Wednesday that it would resign its position on the board of the United States Chamber of Commerce.

Nike said, however, that it would maintain its membership in the chamber.

Three large utilities — Pacific Gas & Electric, PNM Resources and Exelon — have announced their resignations from the chamber this month due to concerns about the chamber’s position on climate.

“We fundamentally disagree with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on the issue of climate change, and their recent action challenging the E.P.A. is inconsistent with our view that climate change is an issue in need of urgent action,” Nike said in a statement that was posted today on the Web site of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Read more…

This is good news. It’s about time that companies take a close look at the implications of their associations. If the values don’t match, it’s a good idea to leave and to do so publicly.

Excerpt:
SAN FRANCISCO -(Dow Jones)- PG&E Corp. (PCG) said Tuesday it is leaving the U.S. Chamber of Commerce over objections to what its top executive called the chamber’s “extreme position on climate change.”

In a letter to the U.S. Chamber published on PG&E’s blog, www next100.com, PG& E Chairman and Chief Executive Peter Darbee wrote that company employees “find it dismaying that the Chamber neglects the indisputable fact that a decisive majority of experts have said the data on global warming are compelling and point to a threat that cannot be ignored.”

Read more…

The New York Times
Andrew Martin

And just when I thought I had it figured out…

Read the article here.
Excerpt:

The local food, or locavore, movement has so much momentum that some of the food glitterati have declared that such food is better than organic.

But now comes a team of researchers from the University of California, Davis, who have started asking provocative questions about the carbon footprint of food. Those questions threaten to undermine some of the feel-good locavore story line, not to mention my weekend forays for produce. (A carbon footprint is a measure of the impact of human activities on the environment in terms of the amount of greenhouse gases produced.)

While the research is not yet complete, Tom Tomich, director of the University of California Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program, said the fact that something is local doesn’t necessarily mean that it is better, environmentally speaking.

The distance that food travels from farm to plate is certainly important, he says, but so is how food is packaged, how it is grown, how it is processed and how it is transported to market.

Dallas Morning News
Editorial
Read the entire article here.
Excerpt:

Greed is going green.

Carbon trading is becoming a lucrative specialty in London’s financial district. Major investment banks are buying and selling pollution credits, the new currency in Europe, where governments limit industries’ emissions. It’s a $30 billion market that is expected to expand rapidly during the next decade.
[...]
Around the world, industrial nations are moving quickly to snag a slice of the fast-growing carbon trade. Bipartisan support for carbon allowances is growing on Capitol Hill, and we remain hopeful that Congress will pass cap-and-trade legislation.

For environmental and economic reasons, the United States should not sit this one out.GET A HEAD START

The New York Times
Rick Friedman
Read the article here.
Excerpt:

Here’s one popular vision for saving the planet: Roll out from under the sumptuous hemp-fiber sheets on your bed in the morning and pull on a pair of $245 organic cotton Levi’s and an Armani biodegradable knit shirt.

Stroll from the bedroom in your eco-McMansion, with its photovoltaic solar panels, into the kitchen remodeled with reclaimed lumber. Enter the three-car garage lighted by energy-sipping fluorescent bulbs and slip behind the wheel of your $104,000 Lexus hybrid.
[...]
The issue of green shopping is highlighting a division in the environmental movement: “the old-school environmentalism of self-abnegation versus this camp of buying your way into heaven,” said Chip Giller, the founder of Grist.org, an online environmental blog that claims a monthly readership of 800,000. “Over even the last couple of months, there is more concern growing within the traditional camp about the Cosmo-izing of the green movement – ’55 great ways to look eco-sexy,’ ” he said. “Among traditional greens, there is concern that too much of the population thinks there’s an easy way out.”

Marshall Glickman and Marjorie Kelly
E-Magazine, March/April 2004
Read the article here.
Excerpt:

The basic premise of socially responsible investing is simple: If money makes the world go ‘round, greener, more humane investments can improve the way it spins. Want sustainably managed forests? Provide loans or capital to eco-minded timber companies. Want Monsanto to get out of the genetic engineering business? Buy Monsanto stock and put forward a shareholder resolution demanding the company cease and desist. This isn’t just wishful thinking; social investors can point to many positive efforts like these. And their strength is building. Yet before hailing a new era of green capitalism, it’s also important to understand some of its limitations.

Read more…

Jeffrey A. Miller
(Your humble web servant)
Read the article here.
Excerpt:

How did corporations obtain this power? Is this the role that we envisioned for business entities in an economic democracy? In this paper, we will look at the history of corporations and their assumption of power that is incompatible with a free society. While we will consider a variety of views as to the proper role for corporate entities, the position of this paper should be clear. We need to reform the role of corporations in our country. We should consider placing limits on the duration of corporate charters, or conditions upon their renewal. States should exercise the responsibility that has always been theirs’ — the oversight of corporate activity. If the states are unwilling or unable to provide responsible oversight, we should consider removing their oversight power, and federalizing corporate charters. Finally, if we are going to consider the corporation to be a person and afford it the same kinds of rights and freedoms that are extended to the individual, perhaps it is time to revise the methods by which we hold the corporate “person” accountable. We should impose the same kind of punishments that we have established for individuals. If a corporation is convicted in the courts for a violation of law, we should curtail its freedom to conduct business for a period of time. In the event of repeat offenses, the penalties should be increased. In those instances where a corporation severely violates the public trust, it should cease to exist. The corporate charter should be revoked, the assets seized and the corporation dissolved.

Read more…

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/walmart/
“100 million Americans shop every week at Wal-Mart to get ‘every day low prices.’ Some economists say Wal-Mart helps hold down the cost of living and boosts U.S. productivity. But critics charge that Wal-Mart is destroying good American jobs by pushing production of consumer goods to China. FRONTLINE Correspondent Hedrick Smith travels across the U.S. and to China to investigate Wal-Mart’s impact on American’s economic future.”

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