Don’t rely on CEOs to save the planet
Konrad Yakabuski of Toronto’s Globe and Mail has an interesting column today about a group called the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and their call to make Canada an environmental superpower.
Exposing their statement for what it is — green PR — Yakabuski wonders whether we should really be relying on corporate CEOs to voluntarily take action when the true objective of any company is its bottom line. And as we know, when companies unite and issue a call to action, what they’re really asking for is something watered down and unregulated. In this sense, they’re acting purely out of self-interest, not out of some desire to save humanity from itself.
Yakabuski argues that we too eagerly buy into what the corporations are saying. The reason, he points out, is that we’ve lost our sense of citizenry. “We act only as consumers and investors,” he writes. “We want the cheapest price and the highest return on our portfolio. If a carbon tax or emissions targets threaten either, we want none of it.”
This, he says, is a recipe for inaction. “Sure we profess to love our planet. But we’re kidding ourselves if we think the CEOs are going to save it. It’s not their job.”
I couldn’t agree more with his analysis. You won’t find a company today that says “I don’t support the environment” or “We need more greenhouse gases.” We should assume that all corporations want to be perceived as green, and in this regard, should judge them on the impact of their actions and not the messaging in PR campaigns that blur the distinction between corporate self-interest and the pursuit of a common good.
Tyler Hamilton is editor-in-chief of Corporate Knights magazine and a business columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the clean technology and green energy market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper.
October 5th, 2007 at 8:51 am
I don’t know. I would generally agree with Yakabuski, but every now and then the CEOs turn around and do something unexpected.
Take Wal-Mart. They started out from a position of realizing efficiency-based cost reductions, but seem to have moved to taking (some) actions that have no bottom-line justification. Of course they can do that by virtue of their market dominance. And maybe I’m being generous: I’m not prepared to say that the Wal-Mart model, presently, is sustanable in the long run. But it’s something.
But the more interesting phenomenon is that of the British Supermarkets. Earlier this year, all four(?) market leaders have come out with their own, voluntary, sustainability plans. And they’re much deeper than you would think. I find it very hard to criticized them–even though they don’t go “far enough”, they really do seem to be making a solid, well-intentioned effort. Even George Monbiot, that inveterate corporate-basher, was positive. His take is here, and it’s well worth a read.
I agree that we can’t *rely* on the CEOs. But we shouldn’t dismiss the corporate-led response to Global Warming either. Our economic system definitely puts well-meaning CEOs between a rock and a hard place if they want to pursue sustainability. But there’s a glimmer of hope that, perhaps with some pushing, corporations can be part of the solution, not the problem. It’s not like the alternative–fundamental transformation of our society–will happen overnight. It pays to be informed, and consider all possibilities.