Someone Has to Get Hurt
Katherine O’Dea of Green Blue is fast becoming one of my favorite people. Not only from her informative presentation on Packaging Sustainability via the 2DegreesNetwork, but also because of this rocking blog post she wrote on how the green revolution ain’t much of a revolution at all.
After reading Cradle to Cradle, it became pretty clear to me that those 'green' innovations we celebrate aren't all that green. In order to really be green, something has to be sustainable throughout it's entire lifecycle. That means havesting a product's materials can't harm the environment, using it shouldn't be harmful, and disposing of it should provide no impact. Or better yet, all of those points in the life cycle should provide a positive impact to the earth, the economy, and society. And as Katherine O'Dea and her sources point out, that sort of thing doesn't happen without people getting hurt.
Think about how things would have to change if we couldn't source materials for our goods in a way that pollutes the environment, enslaves poor foreigners, and hurts a undeveloped nation's economy. If the metals needed to make your computer's electronic components could even be sourced in an enivronmentally responsible way, there would have to be a massive markup on the price of those metals in order to pay the workers well, and give them basic benefits like health insurance and workman's comp that would in turn improve their economy. And if any of that is to happen, it's going to hurt profits, stocks, and wallets around the world. But that's what a revolution does. It revolutionizes the way things are done.
Now, maybe most of us feel powerless to make the change. After all I can't march into factories in China and demand that Apple halt operations until they stop depositing polluting runoff into local waterways. But there are things we can do. We can stop buying crap. We can ask the questions that we want companies to ask of themselves: does this benefit society, the environment, and the economy? Should this product have been made? Or is it a waste of shelf space? If the answers are no, don't buy it. And if you're feeling bold, tell the company why you didn't buy it and that you want products that are beneficial to the triple bottom line. That you won't pull out your wallet for less. Yeah, you're going to hurt some feelings, but if we want a green revolution someone's going to get hurt.