208-596-6500 | Over the last century, a lot of people, especially Americans, have become conditioned to think that environmental leadership is the realm of charities. Environmentally-minded people, and others interested in social values such as peace and equality, tend to habitually consider that charities are “good” and corporations and businesses are “bad”.
This acculturated point of view, when held and repeated as a “fact”, maintains a static, built in conflict between change advocates and the mainstream culture. This communications gap prevents environmentalism and the notions of ecology from becoming widely accepted by society.
Today, there are thousands of green businesses formed by environmentalists who are ready to try using the full range of financial tools and conversations available to for-profit companies in new ways, so they can break free of the cultural constraints to progress that come from viewing protecting the environment as a charity project.
Lately, I’ve noticed a lot of corporations are taking pride in their environmental policies and track records, and promoting this on their websites. While these companies deserve praise for taking steps forward, there is something still missing in society that a company would make their environmental record something to crow about. If we could imagine a future where all environmental issues are solved, no corporation would take special pride in their environmental achievements, just like no corporation today makes a big deal that they have a telephone system in place.
Fortunately, we now have some success stories that demonstrate how environmental values can become ubiquitous. The organic food industry provides the most obvious example. What makes a person choose to purchase an “organic” apple instead of an “industrial” apple? You can’t really see the difference at arm’s length. Perhaps you can taste the difference. But the real difference is a matter of cultural training. Those of us who purchase “organic” food have simply been trained that it is better for us than industrial food.
In the organic food business, like most other green businesses, this cultural training creates the primary financial value of the green product or service. This suggests that the more a green company can afford to teach ecology and environmentalism to the public, the more profitable that company can be, and the more progress it can achieve for the health of people and the biosphere.
The economy can become very dynamic as we move away from static notions of environmental good and bad and toward the notion of ubiquitous environmental understanding. During this dynamic phase, enterprises that understand that green education equals capital will emerge as the new economic leaders.
Until now, the job of teaching culture about the environment has been held by charities. Now, as it is becoming clear that this training creates a real monetary value in society, the role of educating society about nature and the environment will shift more and more to for-profit companies who have the financial tools to provide mass-education and to profit from the financial value created by that cultural training. Some green charities might want to take note, and jump on board before they become artifacts of history.
