'Evil' corporations can benefit global sustainability
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Image by flickr / Toban Black
Big brands like McDonald's may be the key to sustainability
Once upon a time, McDonald's was a little family restaurant and Starbucks, 'the green goddess,' was an eco-friendly coffee shop
A lot of us in Vancouver are doing our best to reduce our carbon footprint and to live a sustainable lifestyle. And a lot of us get frustrated from time to time by poor choice or high prices. And for all our hard work, what are we actually achieving?
The frustration we all feel from time to time came bubbling to the surface recently for Vancouver blogger Emily Wight (aka @emvandee) on her blog, Well fed, flat broke:
I choose meat from farms where the animals had happy lives and died humanely, if that’s possible, which is expensive which means we eat it less often. But I’m a regular person with an income that’s comfortable enough but not extraordinary, and I have regular-person debts and surprise car problems, vet bills, and zero savings. Like most people.
We're pretty impotent. Consumer-driven change is a little like the tail trying to wag the dog.
A more effective approach to driving sustainability in the market place
In his TED speech last month, WWF vice-president Jason Clay demonstrates a much more efficient approach. Rather than convincing 6.9 billion consumers to buy sustainable goods, or even 1.5 billion producers, Clay posits that the best approach is to target the 300–500 companies who trade in the world’s 15 “at risk” resources.
'Big brands' the secret to sustainability
Of those companies, there are 100, Cargill, McDonalds, Coca-Cola etc., who buy or sell 25 percent of those crucial resources. Clay hopes that a change in policy guidelines from these big brands could result in a sustainable change among up to 50 percent of the world's producers.
The end of poor choice and high prices
For us, the end consumer, the result will likely be a greater choice of sustainable products, but we won't be able to choose cheaper, non-sustainable options. We will have to become used to paying what food is worth.
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