I get a feeling of déjà vu quite often.
The hippies went through the entire environmental circle once including everything from solar power and wind mills to toilets and organic.
They also examined the concept of sustainability and evaluation of corporations for social responsibility.
Sustainability got very short shrift because the definition is much too vague. It is not clear and never will be that a paper bag is more sustainable than a plastic bag nor that the plastic diaper is less sustainable than a cotton one. On a more grandiose scale in comparing coal, shale oil, and other forms of power the differences are even more difficult to evaluate. Those of us who examined the idea in the 1980s decided that sustainability was nonsense.
The problem with evaluating corporations was of a slightly different nature. We started off looking at just a few elements such as women and minorities on the board of directors and in employment and expanded to animals in testing and wages in Third World countries and on and on. The list kept growing and it became impossible to evaluate any corporation by any criteria that had wide public support.
That idea fell by the wayside as a consequence.
It is déjà vu for me to watch the environmental movement and its subsidiary concepts of sustainability and corporate governance fall apart.
The hippies went through the entire environmental circle once including everything from solar power and wind mills to toilets and organic.
Sustainability got very short shrift because the definition is much too vague. It is not clear and never will be that a paper bag is more sustainable than a plastic bag nor that the plastic diaper is less sustainable than a cotton one. On a more grandiose scale in comparing coal, shale oil, and other forms of power the differences are even more difficult to evaluate. Those of us who examined the idea in the 1980s decided that sustainability was nonsense.
The problem with evaluating corporations was of a slightly different nature. We started off looking at just a few elements such as women and minorities on the board of directors and in employment and expanded to animals in testing and wages in Third World countries and on and on. The list kept growing and it became impossible to evaluate any corporation by any criteria that had wide public support.
That idea fell by the wayside as a consequence.
It is déjà vu for me to watch the environmental movement and its subsidiary concepts of sustainability and corporate governance fall apart.
