I’ve recently bought a Hybrid – a Ford Escape. And I'm very happy with it. Now I am a bit of an eco-freak. I have a condensing furnace, buy only green hydro from Bullfrog, and am a member of Friends of the Earth. But a Hybrid is not a rational choice even for me. It emits more carbon than a small car – say a Ford Focus; there are concerns about the greenness of the batteries; and I’d have to drive 37,000 km a year to get a financial return. I don’t. http://www.edmunds.com/help/about/press/105827/article.html.
Now I do like what it says about me and my values, and I do feel smug about it, but that’s not the whole story. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5rQM_HAcfA
I did it to encourage auto manufacturers to become greener. My rationale is this. While individuals in corporations are moral the corporations themselves are essentially amoral – they exist to make money. However if they see a profit to be made in being green they will go green. By being willing to pay over the odds for a Hybrid I’m telling them there is a market for green cars. Seeing this they will invest money in developing more products and hopefully ones better than current Hybrids.
This is what I call the New Consumer Activism.
The Old Consumer Activism essentially involved boycotting companies who the activists saw as doing things they didn’t approve of. Some were really quite successful: for example, boycotting Exxon for the Exxon Valdez and Nestle for Baby Milk in Africa. And there will always be a role for this sort of activism. However most were not effective for two reasons. They needed mass coordinated support to work. And because they attacked sales they generated defensiveness in the companies they were targeting, who then did their best to avoid doing anything.
Having worked with many major companies and knowing how they think I believe the New Consumer Activism is a more effective approach.
It creates a positive reaction in companies. They don’t see a threat; they see an opportunity to make money and so they put positive effort and investment supporting it.
It doesn’t need a co-coordinated effort. True it works better the more people are doing it, but it doesn’t rely on a public movement. Each individual makes a statement through their day-to-day purchasing and if enough individuals feel the same way then the companies notice in their sales (which they look at every day, not just when it gets in the papers) and respond.
So everyone, use your dollars to tell companies what kinds of product you want them to produce, where you want them to invest, and what you value.
Now I do like what it says about me and my values, and I do feel smug about it, but that’s not the whole story. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5rQM_HAcfA
I did it to encourage auto manufacturers to become greener. My rationale is this. While individuals in corporations are moral the corporations themselves are essentially amoral – they exist to make money. However if they see a profit to be made in being green they will go green. By being willing to pay over the odds for a Hybrid I’m telling them there is a market for green cars. Seeing this they will invest money in developing more products and hopefully ones better than current Hybrids.
This is what I call the New Consumer Activism.
The Old Consumer Activism essentially involved boycotting companies who the activists saw as doing things they didn’t approve of. Some were really quite successful: for example, boycotting Exxon for the Exxon Valdez and Nestle for Baby Milk in Africa. And there will always be a role for this sort of activism. However most were not effective for two reasons. They needed mass coordinated support to work. And because they attacked sales they generated defensiveness in the companies they were targeting, who then did their best to avoid doing anything.
Having worked with many major companies and knowing how they think I believe the New Consumer Activism is a more effective approach.
It creates a positive reaction in companies. They don’t see a threat; they see an opportunity to make money and so they put positive effort and investment supporting it.
It doesn’t need a co-coordinated effort. True it works better the more people are doing it, but it doesn’t rely on a public movement. Each individual makes a statement through their day-to-day purchasing and if enough individuals feel the same way then the companies notice in their sales (which they look at every day, not just when it gets in the papers) and respond.
So everyone, use your dollars to tell companies what kinds of product you want them to produce, where you want them to invest, and what you value.
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