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 Special Supplement to the October 2001 issue: A report on the proceedings of the Metropolis West Conference, February 7+8, 2001, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, "Finding the Thread of Sustainability." October 2001
Environmental laws are meant to reestablish a true free market, in which corporations internalize costs the same way they internalize profits. My job as an enforcer of these laws is really to enforce the free market and force people to pay the true cost of their activities in their profit taking. William McDonough: We have this idea that to be environmentally responsible we have to become efficient. But efficiency is not that exciting. People don't celebrate efficiency. We don't go up to a cherry tree in the spring and say, "How many cherry blossoms will it take?" Can you imagine Mozart being efficient? He'd hit a piano with a two-by-four and say, "Got them! All at once!" The things we celebrate in life are not efficient. They're exuberant. They're ebullient. They're delightful. They celebrate the abundance of the natural world. Isn't that exciting? Mary Jane McQuillen: A new economic paradigm has evolved over the past dozen or so years as a consequence to trends like privatization, globalization, technology, natural-resource depletion, and shifting demographic patterns. With increased world population and growing prosperity and consumption there's an expanding demand for goods and services on a limited natural-resource base, resulting in pressures on raw materials, water, and fossil fuels. This is driving the search for improved efficiency. The confluence of these trends has elevated the tension among some segments of society over the cost of change, national sovereignty, local culture, and the environment. This was largely illustrated at the World Trade Organization (WTO) demonstrations last year and through the opposition to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. One thing has become clear to us: a company's failure to anticipate and integrate these trends in their business strategy could put their entire business model at risk which has significant repercussions for investors. A couple of years ago the EPA asked us to assemble a group of Wall Street analysts and portfolio managers to talk about their Energy Star and Green Lights programs. We put the invitation out and got a standing-room-only crowd. We heard that companies in this program were able to save 15 to 30 percent a month in energy costs. To us this makes sense, particularly in the retail industry, where there is great pressure to conserve energy. For example, we were looking at two companies in the office-supply industry-one was a participant in the EPA's Green Lights program, the other was not. We chose the company that did participate, which signaled to us that management was taking advantage of a program that helps companies better manage their resources. In this case, a commitment to sustainability was not only the right thing to do but made good business sense. The Global Compact, Global Reporting Initiative, and Global Sullivan Principles are creating greater transparency about company behavior and public scrutiny of companies' willingness to green their entire supply chain with such initiatives as take-back requirements and incorporating recyclability into the design process. This is a lot more common in Europe and Asia; the United States is slower to move, but we are responding in some areas. There's an increasing public awareness; consequently there is governmental concern about quality-of-life issues like pure air and water, equity in the workplace, work-life issues, human rights-key factors in the growth of social investment. |
