By Steve Savage •
October 31, 2009
In the comment streams on my blog posts there is a recurrent theme from one segment of the respondents - they have a deep distrust in the large companies that are involved in modern agricultural technology. They don’t believe these companies will behave ethically because they are for profit entities “only answerable to their shareholders.”
I’d like to speak directly to this as a long-time Ag industry insider whose experience does not support these suspicions. I know that some will dismiss this perspective assuming I am biased, but one has to balance potential for bias with actually having first-hand experience from which to speak. Over the last 32 years I’ve work for or with most of the companies, large and small, that provide agricultural technologies. Fourteen of those years have been as an independent consultant so I get to know what is going on inside of many companies in a given year. I have still only had direct knowledge of a subset of what happens, but in all of that exposure I’ve never witnessed an unethical decision or action - not even the consideration of one. I’ve seen certain decisions that were short-sighted. I’ve sometimes seen decision-making processes that are more driven by fear than by opportunity. I’ve seen missed opportunities because vision was lacking. I’ve occasionally seen failures to take advantage of synergies that could have been realized between divisions of large organizations. I’ve seen problems, but I believe that some level of dysfunction is inevitable in any organization involving people. Still, unethical behavior isn’t something I’ve seen so I disagree that it is automatically likely just because of the characteristics of the company.
On balance I’ve also seen these organizations, large and small, frequently make important contributions to society in terms of the productivity and safety of our food supply. I’ve seen these companies continue to do that in an environment of constant activist attack and very limited public understanding because so few people farm.
By Heather Dunham •
January 18, 2009
Last year, Häagen-Dazs announced it would invest a quarter of a million dollars into research on “Colony Collapse Disorder” — the mysterious ongoing disappearance of millions of honeybees in North America and Europe. Is this mere corporate greenwashing, or does the premium ice cream icon deserve our affection (and our business)?
Häagen-Dazs has a vested interest in preserving and rescuing honeybees, since nearly 40% of their flavours rely on fruits and nuts pollinated by bees. But we shouldn’t dismiss this as mere self-serving business interests. If anything, we should wonder why this sort of investment is not much more common.
By Amanda Peterka •
December 18, 2008
ExxonMobil, which has been hit before with environmental charges, will pay a $6.1 million penalty for failing to comply with pollution regulations in refineries in California, Louisiana and Texas. The company had agreed to reduce pollution in four refineries in those states, but came up short.
By Reenita Malhotra •
December 11, 2008
Ecobrain, a green publishing company offers ebooks, the ideal green reading choice. Ebooks can be instantly downloaded to your desktop. Ecobrain has a series of ebooks that make ideal reading for Ecopreneurs.
EcoBrain.com offers thousands of other titles about or relating to the environment. Their genres include environment, sustainable living, cookbooks, biographies, kids’ books, how-to guides, green architecture titles, organic gardening, composting, fiction and more.
By Reenita Malhotra •
October 22, 2008
The Inspired Economist (IE) (http://inspiredeconomist.com/) provides a bridge between idealism and capitalism, profit and passion, iconoclast and industrialist, right and left, and all of the other dichotomies that serve as distractions from the serious issues that face the world. The IE aims to foster creativity, and to rally both emerging and established business leaders around the goal of creating a more just and sustainable society. A multi-media resource for the New Economy, the IE serves individuals and companies focused [...]
By Jennifer Lance •
September 7, 2008
For the second quarter of 2008, Exxon Mobil reported a record-breaking profit of $11.68 billion, the largest quarterly profit in U.S. history! That is $1,485.55 a second!
Via: CNN Money
Image: Greenpeace
By Cassie Walker •
May 15, 2007
Everyone's talking about the potential of green business to reshape the planet, but what does "green" really mean in the business world? If you've talked with any green entrepreneurs lately, or are one yourself, you know that vision and passion are in abundance. The question is how does a green start-up turn personal commitment into sustainable profit?
To find out the answers to these and other key questions, listen in when Linda Feinholz
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