Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Responsibility = Sustainability

Why are companies that produce products, not responsible for sustainability? Why are they not responsible for the replenishment or protection of the environment? Why don't they have a program to recoup the waste product, or at least the cost of that, or fines that are bigger than that cost - if they do not comply? Or jail terms for their executives - in real prisons, not prisons for the rich. If a corporation takes from the environment, it should replenish equally. I actually feel that if they turn a profit on the product, they should give back even more to the environment than they took from it. The environment should profit as well. Why should the consumer be responsible for recycling of waste product? At the time of sale, the product should be completely sustainable. When a corporation pays a fine for wrongdoing, where does that money go, and what is done with it? Why aren't corporations regulated by an environmental organization? To educate, and keep them in check? Why are profits more important than overall responsibility? The more and more that I learn about our world, and the problems with it, the more it looks like the system we have in place, is a bad one. I really don't think that it is fixable. Because the good in the system, may not really be good. What if someone created a company to regulate products. To provide a sustainability ranking for every product. Each product created would have to pay to have their product ranked, and for it to printed on the package. Would there be 2 rankings, one for the product and one for packaging? What about manufacturing or production of the product? The workplace, etc? Thx to George Israel for getting me to watch The Corporation.

Sustainability is an attempt to provide the best outcomes for the human and natural environments both now and into the indefinite future. It relates to the continuity of economic, social, institutional and environmental aspects of human society, as well as the non-human environment. It is intended to be a means of configuring civilization and human activity so that society, its members and its economies are able to meet their needs and express their greatest potential in the present, while preserving biodiversity and natural ecosystems, and planning and acting for the ability to maintain these ideals in a very long term. Sustainability affects every level of organization, from the local neighborhood to the entire planet.

3 comments:

J.J. Bish said...

Don,

I believe sustainability is a failed term, trying to represent a great ethic.

I have begun to contribute to discussions like yours at my blog:

http://nourishnotsustain.blogspot.com

Hopefully, we can all work together and keep up the good work.

Anonymous said...

Let captialism work brutha, only buy from responsible companies with LEED certified buildings.

don_mecca said...

I really like the word nourish, I just dont understand the way you use it. Nourish is such a specific word. Are we nourishing the earth? IMHO 90% of what us humans do the the planet - is use its resources, waste and/or destroy it. How can we really nourish it? Plant trees? To me, sustainability explains our struggle to find a balance to some of the things that we do. Especially for consumers/companies. Im curious to read your thoughts about this...
FYI - I really like your blog: http://nourishnotsustain.blogspot.com/