Stability=Unsustainability

Stability=Unsustainability

The last blog entry brought us to the conclusion stability = unsustainability. That is, my participants associate economic stability (capital generation) with businesses they identify as unsustainable (big, opaque, cheap goods). Indeed, the companies that my participants identified as superior at generating profit fit well into the “unsustainable” schema identified during the first sorting exercise. Participant 11 noted that bigger companies are more likely to be solely seeking profit at the expense of responsible business.

“I think that smaller, more independent companies usually are formed with more sense of responsibility and since their share, I mean, it's sort of, it's sort of hard to tell because like, they might be formed just to become a larger company and in order to reap the benefits - the economic benefits - of it's product, but I also feel like more of them are probably [pause] more sustainability minded than the large companies that have already been, you know, corrupted by our capitalist process.” Participant 11 #73-78

Participant 25 also identified big businesses profit generation at the expense of ‘ideals.’

“Larger corporations have a…larger pressure to make more money and smaller corporations can be based more around ideals.” Participant 25 #414-416

Indeed, participants characterized these companies as likely to take advantage of regulatory differences (cheap labor, few environmental regulations) between or within nations in order to capitalize on the imbalance. For instance, Participant 36 acknowledged the size and relative economic success of Chiquita Brands, Inc. while noting their exploitive relationship to laborers.

“I think large corporations that make their product in South America, I feel more often than not, have a tendency to do unsustainable things, like pay living wages, bad factory conditions, exploit labor.” Participant 36 #413-415

Participant 11 had a similar response to McDonalds while attempting to decipher whether to sort Chipotle in to the sustainable or unsustainable category.

“I know it is owned by McDonald’s, which is a really large multinational corporation not known for treating its workers well and known for paying a very low wage.” Participant 11 #242-244

Although my respondents care about sustainable business broadly, there is evidence that they consider sustainable business practices to be antithetical to profit, which is a direct risk to a company as well as any individual engaged market. I label this attitude "concern for capital." Although primarily theoretical, concern for capital constitutes a significant barrier to demanding/purchasing sustainable goods.

This attitude a fundamental disconnect in that participants associate unsustainable firms with profit and an opportunity to accumulate monetary wealth, but they also associate these firms with negative impacts like harming the environment, employees, and the communities. While the presence of a profit-generating firm is good for individuals it may also generate significant harms, which could not be rectified without raising (environmental and labor) standards.

Moving from Stability=Unsustainability to Stability=Sustainability

So what should we do about this notion that unsustainable business practices are the way to keep our economy stable and effective? Could we encourage business to adopt sustainable practices and produce sustainable brands?

At the moment, firms seem to have relatively little reason to make trade offs between their economic ends and social/environmental goods, since their only formal end is to generate profit. Many of my respondents, however, expressed the idea that consumers could convince firms (that seek profit) to produce socially and environmentally sustainable goods by “voting with their dollar” or purchasing a sustainable good in lieu of the unsustainable version of that good. This should send a signal to the market that sustainable goods are preferred to unsustainable ones and may make it relatively easier for a company to profit from producing sustainable goods. Participant 26, 40, and 25 alluded to the impact consumers could have if they demanded sustainable products.

“I am kind of working under the assumption that if the primary consumers of a product or of a company’s product aren’t really pushing for sustainability efforts, that the company is less likely to make those efforts on their own.” Participant 26 #206-209

“Whole Foods has done it successfully, and I think that consumer tastes will always kind of triumph over cost. If you can get enough people to buy something because they care about it then I think that’s a pretty successful marketing technique.” Participant 40 #539-542

“The importance of [sustainability] depend[s] on how the consumers that want - like, if everybody, like, knew that like, oh, Adidas exploits Indonesian workers and then, like, everyone hated that, then they would all buy, you know, American-made or, you know, better shoes in a sense. And then obviously Adidas would have to change their priorities drastically.” Participant 25 #232-236

Most respondents agreed, however, that sustainable goods are currently (1) more expensive to produce (for the company), more expensive to purchase (for the consumer), (2) relatively difficult to understand (requiring a intricate knowledge of sustainability), and (3) harder to find (available only at specialty stores, in special aisles, or on the internet). At this point it is relatively unlikely that consumers could encourage companies to make this transition purely with their own buying power, as there are several barriers to purchasing these products.

Expensive to Produce

On transitioning businesses to more environmentally friendly technology:
“In lot of situations it will require internal personnel infrastructure that might not already exist. Like, you got to have consultants. You probably have to have different sort of engineers. It is going to be expensive, but I feel it is important for the long-term viability of the industry and the planet.” Participant 9 #530

“I just think that if a company is willing to put the extraordinary resources into sustainability when regulations for that don’t even exist, like they could get away with it, but they don’t, then I feel like it’s just exceptionally admirable because it is expensive.” Participant 3 #392-396

Expensive to Purchase

On the extent to which all Americans could purchase sustainable goods:
“In our society I don’t think everyone has [the option to purchase sustainable products] because of the lower, middle, and upper class segregations. It’s more expensive because not everything is sustainable nowadays – it’s more of a luxury.” Participant 33 #679-681

On who would be likely to buy sustainable products
“The market was a very like, small circle of people who were getting sort of keen to these issues, and they could have a product sold for them, but they were like so educated, and such a small minority. They were probably willing to pay more for it than someone else who wasn't.” Participant 36 #264-267

Hard to understand

“I feel like the more sustainable people are often found in more affluent areas, because they can afford to pay premium for sustainability…and these people have more time to invest into understanding sustainability.’ Participant 6 #155-158

“I feel like environmental and labor practice concerns are one of those things where like if you aren’t always thinking about it and always on the ball, and make it part of your daily life you’re not going to be the kind of person to adopt
it. It’s one of those things, you hear about it once and you’re like ok, cool, but it’s an ever changing spectrum and to always to be able to make the most knowledgeable choice is not an easy thing.” Participant 40 #799-783

Hard to find

“You have to go to specialty stores, but then it’s really expensive -- out of my price range. You’ll see a lot of organic cotton, or things made out of hemp, or bamboo. So I think it’s there but you have to go looking for it and you can’t always afford it unless you are some chi chi environmentalist.” Participant 9 #243-245

“If you have a company you don't want people knowing the bad side of you, so I'm willing to bet that some of these major corporations -- companies are going to do their best to kind of like hush that down.” Participant 22 #441-444

In order to encourage companies to make tradeoffs between social, environmental, and economic concerns, steps must be taken to lower the barriers to consuming sustainable products: (1) high price, (2) lack of information, and (3) lack of availability, and (4) concern for capital so they may experience sales growth. By breaking down these barriers consumers may begin to see the real costs of the products they purchase, which may diminish their concern for capital, or their willingness to preference capital over sustainability concerns when they are in conflict.

In my next entry I will discuss how we can begin to lower these four barriers to consuming sustainable products. These recommendations are designed to encourage growth in the market for sustainable products through consumer demand.