Guest post: Just sprinkle in a few sustainability coordinators
Originally a comment by iknklast on Magical solutions.
It’s interesting his notation about sustainability and corporations. I realized quite a long time ago that most sustainability coordinators/directors/whatever, are very much on track with corporate free market agendas, and the only solutions I’ve ever heard have been very business friendly, and very climate hostile, while singing the praises of green this and green that.
I suspect the rise of the sustainability coordinator is less a signal of corporate commitment to fighting climate change and more a commitment to doing nothing. Any time Congress started rattling the swords of possible regulations, the businesses could point to their sustainability department and crow about their free market commitment to sustainability, helping to stave off any new regulations so they could keep doing business as usual but with a nice coat of greenwashing.
Congress would have no trouble accepting that, because most of the representatives and senators are more than happy to deregulate or not impose new regulations. Voters can be swayed by an opponent pointing to new regulations, saying “this cost taxpayers [fill in astronomically large price] for what? Something that won’t feed you or put clothes on your back or gas in your car.” Then voters go to the polls, misinformed…or maybe half informed, but most regulations do not cost what the anti-regulation propaganda says it will, and often does more than they say it will. The problem is, most of what it does is unseen by the average voter, so it looks like wasting money to them
So they put in sustainability coordinators, sign agreements with bodies made up of corporations to show their commitment, and change nothing. And Congress (Parliament, etc…fill in legislating body of your preference) is happy to believe them.
A long time ago Kim Stanley Robinson wrote about this. He called it Götterdämmerung* Capitalism. He made the point that free market Capitalism will never surrender a resource or technique for exploiting the resource no matter how inefficient or dire the consequences until it is economically imperative that it does so. Really, you say, but we live in a capitalist society and companies adopt practices to look after the environment and reduce emissions. That’s true, but it’s only because regulations have actually forced that on them over decades of incremental change – pushed by activists and researchers working to change both societal and governmental attitudes.
For large and complex problems, especially with long lead times, the free market is woeful. Action has to be taken by governments to regulate responses from both companies and individuals. In democracies we tend to vote that kind of ‘nanny state’ or ‘socialism/marxism’ down. Non-democracies tend not to do it unless forced to because they rely on a complacent population to keep their heads. Fifty years ago we might have got ahead of the curve enough to blunt the effects. Now we’re going to spend the next 10-20 years arguing while doing almost nothing, and the next 40 years fighting vicious wars over dwindling supplies of food and water in habitable parts of the globe. it’s a huge shame. A crime really. Because even now if we acted globally we could at least avoid most of the wars.
* “Twilight of the gods.” Figuratively, the term is extended to situations of world-altering destruction marked by extreme chaos and violence.
Oh but I don’t say that. I know damn well what companies do and why.
[…] a comment by Rob on Just sprinkle in a few sustainability […]
Ophelia, not ‘you’, but rather the hypothetical you, i.e. ‘us’.
The bank that just laid me off (but I can’t name because if I post negatively about them they can cut off my severance) was quite proud of the green initiatives they engaged in such as not providing cups at the coffee stations, providing recycling dumpsters for paper, not funding certain industries through their stock investments or lending. But that didn’t really mean much in the way they build their infrastructure. And they are not the only corporation that does this: in the Phoenix metropolitan area, they have built a 4-building campus near Chandler on a full section plot of land with huge green lawns that must be watered. In the desert. There are several other corporations that have similar campuses, each a quarter mile apart. People who work out there must commute either by car or bus (and the AZ highway department did just complete a perimeter freeway for this) or move out there and away from the city proper. So, new developments are pushed out into land that either was irrigated farmland or is desert that will need to be uprooted. There are a host of environmental issues that are against the claim that the bank is making efforts to green the economy. There was a tower in downtown Phoenix where several hundred people worked, but they moved those people out to suburban offices, so people are faced with the choice of looking for a different job within the company closer to where they live (and no guarantee that the new department might be moved or, as in my case, the company may decide that having people isn’t cost effective in that department.)
I have some ideas on what they could do instead, but even when I worked there it was very hard to make my voice heard when I wanted to make suggestions. I need to become wealthy enough to get on the board of directors, now don’t I?
Mike, that sounds like pretty typical behaviour from a corporation.
More to the point, that’s a really stressful thing you’e experiencing. I do hope you’re going to be ok.
Rob @ 4 – oh I knew that! But I think one (you, I, we) can reply to the generalized “you” (or we) with “I don’t” – it’s a bit Monty Pythonish, but then so am I.
Thanks, Rob. It’s been a rough year with my beloved RoZie needing to be put down due to an rare (for dogs) autoimmune disease, the motorcycle accident, being laid off and all. But I am picking up new skills and doing the independent contractor thing so I can’t be laid off again (as God is my witness, I’ll never be laid off again!) I have a new puppy, too so I am setting up 2024 to be a much better year.
That is definitely way too much bad crap for one person in one year. Snorgle that new puppy for me!
Mike: Sorry to hear about the loss of your job. Best wishes for a better year in 2024 for you and pup and the rest of your family.
Rob: I have remembered the substance of that eloquent and informative rant about corporations ever since I read it, years ago, but until now have been unable to remember where I encountered it, so thanks for jogging my memory. It helped to further inform my growing cynicism about corporate culture (and IIRC, KSR also pointed out that western society has been for a long time ceding to corporations many powers and rights that, if usurped by government, would have resulted in the population being (literally and/or figuratively) up-in-arms to resist).
Ophelia @ 7, I was raised on Monty Python and other UK comedy, so, yeah.
Mike @ 8, I’m pleased to hear you’re making progress and I’m sure I speak for everyone (waves arms around) in wishing you a much better 2024.
Seanna @ 10, It was a good, but not comforting read. There were a number of SciFi writers around that time that wrote warning about the rise of Trans Nationals that came to challenge and eventually subsume national governments. It’s a theme KSR develops further in his Mars trilogy as well.
Thank you to everyone, and Ophelia, this pup loves snorgles so I’m more than happy to oblige. (He also loves remote controls, and I have them on my “frequent re-orders” list on Amazon.)
Heh yes puppies tend to be hard on small household objects. I wonder if the pet toy corporations offer fake remotes for them to chew…
Heh, yes they do. $3.50.