Петрова Евгения Сергеевна : другие произведения.

Consumers Can Control Business

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  • Аннотация:
    В этой статье говорится о том, что "человек разумный" дошёл до того, что сам начал себя же уничтожать, ставя на первое место деньги. Организации и магнаты не останавливаются ни перед чем и лишь простые граждане могут повлиять на них. Статья написана на английском языке.
  rl Frankel writer, journalist, speaker, consultant, environmentalist, and entrepreneur specializing in business and sustainable development writes his book in Earth's Company to businesses and business people . He uses “the term ‘sustainable development’” and says that it “describes how we would like the world to be - fair, healthy, and secure” (21). The author suggests a new way of doing business, which will help to save natural resources and improve our society. Frankel has useful examples to support his thesis, such as “Shell” and “Wal-Mart,” where he shows the real situation of these businesses. He develops a key for businesses to be run in a new way. Frankel blames businesses for not working together as a team and for being concerned only with making more money, not about the environment. “Frankel is as clear as any environmental activist that business-as-usual is a death sentence for our planet” (New Society NP). He analyzes businesses and writes about four principles: “zero
  waste,” “ whole-system thinking,” “looking outward,” and “remembering sustainable
  development” (81-84). It seems that if people follow Frankel’s idea, our planet would become “utopian” and be “the harmonious balancing of these three “E’s” - Economics, Environment, and Equity” (21-22).
  
   Frankel’s solution sounds quite strong and he has support for his ideas. The author
  points out good examples - the restaurant business and carpentry business case, to show
  how his idea of sustainable development can be put into practice. As a result of the development of business, the amount of natural resources noticeable has decreased. Frankel explains that if businesses continue to run in the same way they do now, the amount of natural resources will reach the critical stage. He states that business people have to think not just about making money, but about the environment as well. “On the personal level, he says, as our values and self- sense grow stronger, we could begin to take responsibility for environment, equality, and justice” (Pinchot “Book Reviews”). It seems that Frankel cares a lot about this problem and he states that business people have to change their point of view and develop “sustainability” anew (104).
  
   It is true that Frankel cares a lot about the environment and his suggestion might work and help to save natural resources, but however there is a flaw: why does he write his book to business people? Does he really believe that they will read and react to it? Unfortunately, the most likely the answer is no. Businesses stay out of environmental protection, they think about making a profit. Probably it would be better and more reasonable if he wrote to the public, because the public has power: they can protest, they can argue and businesses will listen to them eventually. The public does not have any profit if a firm uses a lot of natural resources, but they lose in this situation because the resources and the air can become polluted. That is why it makes sense to write to the public.
  
  
  One of the examples that clearly shows why Frankel should have focus on a different audience is concerning the action of “the world’s second largest petroleum company” - Shell (18). The company has came up with a cheap solution: because it was too expensive for them to recycle wasted oil “Shell decided that the best way to get rid of one of its North Sea oil rigs [was by sinking it]” (18). The public completely disagreed with this fact. As a remonstrance people have decided to stop buying their production and the “international barrage of bad publicity, complete with boycotts,” got a place (18). First the company did not react to it and “the financial markets proved to be indifferent to all this commotion” (18). People did not give up, they were attached to their positions and eventually Shell did respond by “revamping its statement of General Businesses Principles to include explicit support for human rights,” because the public did not leave Shell another choice rather than to stop this, what I consider to be, a crime (18).
  
   Another illustration of the fact that people have power is the Home Depot situation. The company was selling “the old growth rainforest products,” “mahogany ripped from the heart of
  the Brazilian Amazon, plywood and doors made from lauan logged from the rainforests of
  Indonesia,” and “garden implements made of endangered ramin logged from the island of
  Borneo” (Direct Action NP). This unbelievable wasteful action could not be left ignored. “Six activists used bicycle locks to secure themselves to shelving and doors made of old growth rainforest woods in protest of the destruction wrought by logging in old growth rainforest worldwide” (ARC Direct Action team NP). Even though “numerous Amazon Indians have been killed by mahogany loggers,” people still were struggling against the action, trying to save the old trees (Home Depot NP). “Indigenous people have been fighting the destruction of their homeland at the hands of logging companies for decades” (Direct Action NP). Finally the protesters had success when Home Depot “informed vendors of the policy change, which would be completed by the end of 2002 when it would no longer sell lauan, redwood or cedar from old-growth forests in which trees are often thousands of years old” (Home Depot NP). “Home Depot, the world's largest home improvement retailer, urged other retailers to join the effort to save endangered forests and pledged to hold the line on prices as vendors and customers switch to products made from alternative materials” (Home Depot NP). People encourage that businesses “can have a domino effect, inspiring other companies to follow suit and at a deeper level driving a shift in the dominant business culture toward ever greater levels of sustainability” (120).
  
   Another prove that shows consumers can improve and influence to “sustainable development” is The Body Shop. A lot of people have an opinion that The Body Shop is a defender of nature and their policy is [to protest against animal testing, and producing natural products as the main purposes]” (Schwartz and Gibb 97). The London Greenpeace Organization have criticized and blaming the company for telling the falsehood to the public. The Body Shop states that they do not test any of their products on animals. True, officially they do not, but they do “accept ingredients tested on animals” (Greenpeace.org NP). As states The Greenpeace Organization, The Body Shop uses a lot of synthetic and not botanical-based components in their cosmetics that can effect the skin and the hair, which makes animals to suffer.
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