Over the past decade, green, sustainability and organic related topics are becoming more and more popularly introduced to our society, especially to the large companies. As resources are limited, how to allocate them efficiently, not compromise our infinite demand becomes the key as well as the primary objective for most major corporations. Nowadays, trend of increasing numbers of companies who join or participate in events related to green and sustainability is becoming more and more common. For instance, general mills invest more than $100 million into improving on energy efficiency; San Francisco bans sales of plastic water bottle; Adidas’ shoes are being made from marine plastic wastes. Even though these practices would bring positive impacts toward society to certain extent, the reason behind such actions by the companies could still be questionable and suspicious under certain circumstances. As a matter of fact, some companies could be taking such actions as a promotional strategy in order to eliminate their bad reputations.
In this post, I would argue that people need to remain skeptical when it comes to judging companies’ decisions and their intention. Most of the time, People tend to lose their judgment towards the true value of goods when they are being bombarded with positive messages of purchasing the products. Thus, situations like the consumers would just make their purchase with the absence of sufficient consideration are not rare. Therefore, as companies, some might use this tendency to manipulate their public image. Using my experience as an example, couple years ago the local government was planning on building a high way close to my house. In the beginning, everyone that lives close to that area were protesting and saying it would make too much noise which would greatly affect their living quality. However, after the completion of the high way, the prices of the houses within that residential area were soaring, and the neighbor actually started to praise the local government.
In summary, the idea I am trying to convey through this article is that, as a citizen as well as a member of our society, we need to understand whether the practices of the companies are truly for the good of our society or the good of themselves solely. Last but not least, one thing I am positive about is that if everyone including the big firms can take a step ahead or even just make a little contribution, the society as a whole would undoubtedly be closer to a utopia.
As San Francisco has just banned sale of plastic bottle, it would be interesting to see how society react to it and how this movement can leverage to next level and to have broader impact.
http://www.globalflare.com/san-francisco-becomes-the-first-city-to-ban-sale-of-plastic-bottles/
http://www.marketingmag.ca/brands/general-mills-sets-ambitious-goal-for-greenhouse-gas-cuts-155517
Wanda He
January 23, 2016 — 11:30 pm
Profit first. This is my general belief for the corporations who did not self-identify as “non-profit enterprises” or “charities”. To most of the companies, sustainability acts as a point of difference, that enables them to further boost their profit, and gain certain reputation and recognition, which will in turn, become profit. It may be difficult to claim that the business does it out of pure economic considerations, as Friedman has always claimed that the social responsibility for companies is to make a profit. There are green considerations that have been factored into the decision-making process, and under the assumption that Jennifer Elks’ summary on aspirational generation is valid, and then companies have made smart, economic decision that would benefit them in the long run. After all, changes are induced by other changes. The shift in consumer values forces companies to rethink their strategies and objectives, thus, tweaking their product and design.