Background
for Teachers
In the “green” world of corporate America there are
three types of companies. The first is comprised of those companies
that have always been green because that is who they are and have
always been. It is part of their mission; it is what they stand
for. The second is made up of those companies that at one time followed
environmentally unfriendly practices, either through ignorance or
intentionally flaunting of eco-friendly practices for their own
gain, but are now following practices that are environmentally sound.
The third group of companies is those that continually follow practices
that are detrimental to the environment. Patagonia
is a good example of a company that has been truly “green”
from the start. The company was founded in 1972 by Yvon Chouinard
to sell rugged outdoor clothing. His philosophy is to manufacture
clothes in the most responsible way using organic cottons and
recyclable materials. He is determined not to release toxins into
the environment as part of the production process. Etched in the
front door of the company’s headquarters are the words,
“There is no business to be done on a dead planet.”
Chouinard puts his money where his mouth is. Patagonia gives at
the grassroots level to innovative groups overlooked or rejected
by other corporate donors. They fund activists who take radical
and strategic steps to protect habitat, wilderness and biodiversity.
According to their website (www.patagonia.com), they have given
more than $20 million to more than 1,000 organizations since the
grants program began. The company’s mission statement is:
“Build the best product, do no unnecessary harm, use business
to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.”
Chouinard can follow these high-minded principles rather than
a strategy of profit maximization at Patagonia because he owns
the company and has no shareholders to answer to. He believed
that if he focused on doing things right rather than focusing
on making money, the profits would come, and they did (Casey,
2007).
Dupont is a good example of the second group of companies that
have transformed themselves from being environmentally unfriendly
to being “green” activists. In 1993, the New York-based
Council on Economic Priorities named DuPont to its list of the
worst corporate polluters for a second consecutive year, noting
that the nation's largest chemical company remained the largest
emitter of toxic chemicals. Partially, because of government intervention,
DuPont began to change the way it operated. As part of the 1991
settlement between DuPont and the Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA), DuPont agreed to conduct an internal audit of their waste-generating
activities and evaluate pollution prevention opportunities at
its facility. In consultation with the EPA, company officials
identified 15 manufacturing processes with pollution prevention
potential. The individual projects focused on reducing solvent
wastes, tar wastes and other chemical wastes. One project even
reduced packaging waste by introducing reusable chemical containers
in place of disposable 55-gallon drums. The total up-front investment
for all 15 projects was expected to be about $6 million, while
DuPont realized annual savings of about $15 million. As a result,
in 1993 under the leadership of Paul Tebo, Dupont embraced the
mission to curb pollution and cut costs by pledging to reduce
waste, emissions, and energy usage. Today they are going much
farther. There goal – to own a collection of businesses
that can go on forever without depleting natural resources. According
to their website (www.DuPont.com), their goal for sustainable
growth is as follows:
“Through our science, we will design products and processes
that pass rigorous criteria for the use of renewable resources,
energy, water and materials. We believe this is a direct route
to a successful, profitable business that add value to our customers,
their customers, consumers, and the planet.”
Peabody
Energy Corp. represents the third type of company: those companies
that continually follow practices that are detrimental to the
environment. BusinessWeek magazine summed it up best when they
wrote,
“As
evidence of global warming mounts, companies everywhere are going
green. But not Peabody Energy Corp. Gregory H. Boyce, chief executive
of the world's biggest coal company, is one of the few prominent
opponents of climate regulation whose position hasn't softened
one bit in recent months.”
Peabody
is a coal mining company and as is the case in coal companies:
they strip the mountains and blacken the sky. And in the face
of intense opposition from environmentalists, they are building
a pair of traditional 1,500-megawatt coal-burning power plants.
Also, as Congress is considering several bills that deal with
global warming, Boyce, the CEO of Peabody, has spent $5.5 million
to lobby against these bills. Why is the public not outraged?
Because the American public is addicted to electricity for everything
from our Ipods to our flat irons. With the price of oil and gas
rising, coal is a cheap and abundant energy source, so we tend
to look the other way.
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