How The Climate Crisis Is Transforming The Meaning Of ‘Sustainability’ In Business | Talking Points Memo

TPM Article Topics
1

This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It first appeared at The Conversation.

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1390508
2

“Blah, blah, blah”

Greta Thunberg

So much greenwashing (AKA green sheen)

“Our products now contain 50% more recycled material”?

So they went from 2% recycled to 3% recycled material.
This is just corporate America’s head fake to forestall appropriate regulations.

8 Likes
3

Sustainability as Usual is nothing more than human nature.
AKA - Greed.
AKA - Capitalism.

1 Like
4

If anything saves us, it will be the insurance companies. They know to the dime how much disaster exposure every company has.

If.

4 Likes
5

“It was the outcome of $1.2 million invested and 185,000 hours of work over eight years, according to the company.” This amounts to one schmuck paid $30/hr plus materials and “lab space”. I am assuming it wasn’t two schmucks each earning $15/hr based on the premise that some education was required. I may be wrong.

1 Like
6

Eight years, even with overtime, would mean roughly a dozen poor suckers. The numbers don’t make sense unless either the 185K is wrong or the $1.2M is in addition to salaries.

7

It also sounds like a pointless project. The cap is only recyclable if it’s processed somewhere capable of processing caps and most recycling services I know of tell you to throw out caps and lids because they don’t work in the recycling mechanisms that exist currently.

I don’t know how any of that currently works, but it’s not really something that one company can “fix” on their own. There has to be some sort of collective standard or one company’s efforts towards sustainability ends up being wasted effort or empty words without any realistic progress.

1 Like
8

$1.2M AS TO INCLUDE: a place to do the work [rental] raw materials to test, and the equipment to make the prototypes. All of this is depreciation which is a large part of the cost given.
Thus, one or two schmucks. The idea that this concept would take 8 years is added confirmation that it was one or two schmucks.

1 Like
9

One or two can’t clock in for 185,000 hours over 8 years. Unless they’ve also invented a time machine.

10

Global greenhouse gas emissions continued to grow, as did the pay gap between CEOs and employees…

I hope the author’s optimism is founded. I have to wonder, though, how capitalism is going to evolve to be not-capitalism. We know what happens to stocks when profits fall.

1 Like