A Responsibility Revolution
"We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals," FDR said in 1937, in the midst of the Great Depression. "We know now that it is bad economies." We have learned this all. But even amid the Great Recession of 2009, people have been trading in their SUVs for Priuses, buying record amounts of fair-trade coffee and investing in socially responsible funds at higher rates than ever before. What we are discovering now, in the most uncertain economy since FDR’s time, is that enlightened self-interest—call it a shared sense of responsibility—is good economics.
America has always been a great laboratory of social innovation, from Ben Franklin’s creation of the volunteer fire department and the lending library to the rise of online collectives like Wikipedia and Facebook. Usually it has been an invention, some innovation in commerce—the car, the light bulb, the television—that has changed how we interact with one another as well as how we think of ourselves. We are again entering a period of social change as Americans are recalibrating(重新校准)our sense of what it means to be a citizen, not just through voting or volunteering but also through commerce: by what we buy. There is a new dimension to civic duty that is growing in America—it’s the idea that we can serve not only by spending time in our communities and classrooms but by spending more responsibly. We are starting to put our money where our ideals are.
According to a new TIME poll, more than 6 in 10 Americans have bought organic products since January. Lots of us have bought an energy-efficient light bulb too. And it’s not just the nature of the product but also its source that’s prompting us to buy. Of the 1,003 s we polled this summer, 82% said they have consciously supported local or neighborhood businesses this year. Nearly 40% said they purchased a product in 2009 because they liked the social or political values of the company that produced it. That’s evidence of a changing mind-set, a new kind of social contract among consumers, business and government. We are seeing the rise of the citizen consumer—and the beginnings of a responsibility revolution.
Corporate America has discovered that social responsibility attracts investment capital as well as customer loyalty, creating a virtuous circle. With global warming on the minds of many consumers, lots of companies are racing to "outgreen" one another, a competition that is good for their bottom lines as well as the environment’s. The most progressive companies are talking about a triple bottom line—profit, planet and people—that focuses on how to run a business while trying to improve environmental and worker conditions.
Many corporations discovered that business was about a lot more than a profit-and-loss statement. At first, the corporate stance was defensive: companies were punished by consumers for unethical behavior. In the 1990s, companies like Nike and Walmart were attacked for discriminatory and unfair labor practices. Companies also began to realize that just as some consumers boycotted products they considered unethical, others would purchase products in part because their manufacturers were responsible.
Some companies embraced the new ethos early on. In 1992, Gap developed sourcing guidelines for its suppliers, and in 1996 the company put in effect a code of conduct for them. Since 2004, Gap has been publishing information about the factories it uses and those it has stopped doing business with. Last year HP followed suit, becoming one of the first computer manufacturers to apply similar transparency to its global supply chain. Timberland now prints a detailed label for its shoes, noting on each pair the company’s material and energy usage
None of this would have happened without consumer demand. Nearly half of Americans in our poll said protecting the environment should be given priority over economic growth—and this comes in the midst of a recession and historic unemployment. And 78% of those polled said they would be willing to pay $ 2,000 more for a car that gets 35 m. p. g. than for a similar one that gets only 25 m. p. g, Of course, consumers are doing their own doing-well-by-doing-good calculation: a more expensive ear that gets better gas mileage will save them money in the long run—and make them feel good about it in the process.
Many companies are trying to reconfigure their DNA as profit seekers. Take Walmart. Once the poster child of corporate ruthlessness, a retailer whose business model of undercutting(廉价销售)all of its competitors would have been applauded by Friedman, Walmart has resolved to change its way of doing business for the sake of the future of the planet. The company has required its suppliers to reduce packaging to protect the environment and is trying to boost sales of energy-efficient light bulbs by giving them more shelf space and better placement in stores. In July it announced it is developing a sustainability index that will one day show consumers at a glance how green its products are.
Other companies are improving their responsibility commitments. Intel, the world’s largest chipmaker, says it plans to increase investment this year in energy efficiency that will help the environment and cut costs. Mars and Cadbury have unveiled plans to increase the amount of ca (可可豆)they harvest from sustainable sources because it is good for the environment and will also relieve potential shortages in the future. The high-end stroller company Bugaboo just announced it will start contributing 1% of its total revenues to the Global Fund that helps programs in Africa. That’s 1% of Bugaboo’s revenues, not profits.
One question is: How much of all this is just shrewd marketing to give companies a halo (光环)effect Participants in these high-profile efforts have been criticized for spending a bundle on marketing. Meanwhile, a New York environmentalist named Jay Westerveld coined the term greenwashing for companies that spin their products as being more environmentally friendly than they really are.
That’s one reason why Walmart’s plan to standardize a sustainability index is so important. If companies are really improving their carbon footprint—and, one hopes, the way they treat their workers—in order to improve their image and engender consumer loyalty, isn’t that a net good thing And if they are doing it exclusively to help their bottom line, so what "I don’t care whether companies change for the love of the environment or because of their financial interest," says Geoffrey Heal, a Columbia Business School professor and the author of When Principles Pay. "The most sustainable solution is to have companies responding to financial incentives rather than their own feelings. "
It’s not just big companies that are doing well by doing good. Increasingly, social entrepreneurs are starting companies rather than nonprofits, to capitalize on the power of the market to create public benefit. And some of these entrepreneurs are choosing to form "B Corporations," a new corporate structure that requires enterprises to build into their foundation strong social and environmental standards for their operations. More than 220 companies, whose combined revenue tops $ 1 billion, have become B Corps since their certification began in 2007.
A Responsibility RevolutionAccording to a new TIME poll, what may be one of the reasons that Americans prefer to buy organic food ant energy-efficient light bulbs