{"id":3609,"date":"2009-12-06T18:02:11","date_gmt":"2009-12-06T18:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zmetro.com\/?p=3609"},"modified":"2009-12-06T18:02:11","modified_gmt":"2009-12-06T18:02:11","slug":"will_big_busine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=3609","title":{"rendered":"Will Big Business Save the Earth?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jared Diamond<\/a>: <\/p>\n

THERE is a widespread view, particularly among environmentalists and liberals, that big businesses are environmentally destructive, greedy, evil and driven by short-term profits. I know \u2014 because I used to share that view.
\n


\nBut today I have more nuanced feelings. Over the years I\u2019ve joined the boards of two environmental groups, the World Wildlife Fund and Conservation International, serving alongside many business executives.


\nAs part of my board work, I have been asked to assess the environments in oil fields, and have had frank discussions with oil company employees at all levels. I\u2019ve also worked with executives of mining, retail, logging and financial services companies. I\u2019ve discovered that while some businesses are indeed as destructive as many suspect, others are among the world\u2019s strongest positive forces for environmental sustainability.


\nThe embrace of environmental concerns by chief executives has accelerated recently for several reasons. Lower consumption of environmental resources saves money in the short run. Maintaining sustainable resource levels and not polluting saves money in the long run. And a clean image \u2014 one attained by, say, avoiding oil spills and other environmental disasters \u2014 reduces criticism from employees, consumers and government. <\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Much more on Jared Diamond here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jared Diamond<\/a>: <\/p>\n

THERE is a widespread view, particularly among environmentalists and liberals, that big businesses are environmentally destructive, greedy, evil and driven by short-term profits. I know \u2014 because I used to share that view.
\n


\nBut today I have more nuanced feelings. Over the years I\u2019ve joined the boards of two environmental groups, the World Wildlife Fund and Conservation International, serving alongside many business executives.


\nAs part of my board work, I have been asked to assess the environments in oil fields, and have had frank discussions with oil company employees at all levels. I\u2019ve also worked with executives of mining, retail, logging and financial services companies. I\u2019ve discovered that while some businesses are indeed as destructive as many suspect, others are among the world\u2019s strongest positive forces for environmental sustainability.


\nThe embrace of environmental concerns by chief executives has accelerated recently for several reasons. Lower consumption of environmental resources saves money in the short run. Maintaining sustainable resource levels and not polluting saves money in the long run. And a clean image \u2014 one attained by, say, avoiding oil spills and other environmental disasters \u2014 reduces criticism from employees, consumers and government. <\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Much more on Jared Diamond here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,21,29,32,24,33,34,11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3609"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3609\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}