Gauging the Greenshift

A friend recently sent me a NY Times article, Can Burts' Bees Turn Clorox Green, about this true, honest-to-God, home-grown, mom'n'pop enterprise.... that developed into a company worth $913 million -- at least to Clorox, which purchased it last November.

Like Ben & Jerrys, Tom's of Maine and other eponymous leafy green companies (also bought out by larger corporations Unilever and Colgate, respectively), they have a "Greater Good" policy that values environmental responsibility, natural ingredients, animal rights, responsible trade and, yes ladies and gentlemen, employee benefits.

"The premise is that if companies are socially responsible, profit will follow," the article states of Clorox's motive, "[Their] research recently found that 53 percent of consumers planned to buy more eco-friendly products this year and that 47 percent were willing to pay 20 percent to 25 percent premiums for them."

In short, and to my cynical mind: for all their greenspeak, profit is still king. They, like so many companies, are going green not because it's good, or responsible, or will help us and our planet in the long run, but because it's fashionable. And, with current energy prices, it's less costly.

Burt's Bees, Tom's and Ben & Jerry's became the companies they were as a reflection of the values of the people who created them.

But corporate America is created and run by people whose value system revolves around profit. This is not necessarily bad, but it can't go unchecked.

And one way that it can become good is if we, the purchasing public, remember the power of our dollars -- because their professed "values" will always follow and attempt to reflect ours, enabling us to influence these companies in a less profit-centred, more socially responsible direction.

And maybe this influence will last long enough to be entrenched enough in their business method too make it costly to reverse when fashion switches back again...