Green Leaf Report

I’m always uncomfortable when I read articles about green-washing and the fallacies of the green industry; I don’t want the occasional missteps to be provided as an excuse to walk away from the potential benefits.  But Business Week has an article ‘Little Green Lies’  that walks the line between provocative and painful truth.  As I started to read it I was ready to dismiss it, but it’s an important article on the challenges of greening a society where luxury and earnings are put before social responsibility.  This article is about the accomplishments and frustrations of Auden Schindler, the corporate sustainability advocate at Aspen Skiing Company. One simple little section in the article keeps running through my head:

He first took aim at the 90-room Little Nell Hotel. The luxurious lodge nestled at the base of Aspen Mountain devours so much electricity that Schendler assumed it would be simple to find efficiencies. He told its then-manager, Eric Calderon, he wanted to put fluorescent lightbulbs in all guest rooms. The new bulbs would last 10 times as long, use 75% less power, and pay for themselves in only two years. The answer was no. Calderon, who favors dapper blue blazers and chinos, worried that fluorescent light would suggest a waiting-room ambience, jeopardizing the establishment’s five-star rating. “There’s always a question of balance between environmental concerns and satisfying expectations of the clientele,” he says.

I’ve heard this same sort of response, given in so many ways when trying to suggest innovations, and when watching my peers trying to make changes.  The ROI has to be proven before any changes can be made; the results have to be better than the current situation to drive any changes; the dollar, customers, and share-holders are held up for quick reasons to avoid change.  Inertia holds us to an unsustainable situation, where the maintenance of luxury and the status-quo are all important.

So in the end, it’s easier to make a quick donation instead of changing our practices.  Let us all buy offsetting carbon credits, and use the expense as a marketing campaign for free PR.  It’s proven, it’s actually a pretty good ROI, considering the high cost of a national marketing campaign.  It’s also pretty hollow:

Setting aside questionable renewable energy credits would wipe out the climate-saving assertions of dozens of major corporations celebrated for their environmental leadership. Office products retailer Staples (SPLS ) has used RECs to turn a 19% spike in emissions since 2001 into what it claims to be a 15% decline, the company’s sustainability reports show. PepsiCo (PEP ) and Whole Foods Market have employed the credits to make declarations that every bit of pollution from electricity they use is negated. Johnson & Johnson has proclaimed a 17% reduction in carbon emissions since 1990, based largely on RECs. Without the credits, the pharmaceutical giant has seen a 24% increase, J&J executives acknowledge.

At the end of the day, using more energy and paying some money to a company that plants trees, maintains windmills, or captures gas from landfills doesn’t reduce the growing amount of energy being used in corporate America.  Planting trees is great; claiming offsets is dangerous and can be misleading.  We need real changes in corporate America, and soon.