Corporate Responsibility

Does this sound familiar: You read the papers. You watch the news. You surf the blogosphere. And with every new bit of eco-reporting, you just keep thinking… This is freakin’ nuts. There’s got to be a better way.

And of course there is. We don’t have to be chained to the toxics treadmill. With a little creativity, we can break the cycle and end our chemical addictions. A brand new study from the Toxics Use Reduction Institute (TURI) at the University of Massachusetts Lowell shows just how possible it is.

Researchers took five heavy toxicological hitters (lead, formaldehyde, perchloroethylene, hexavalent chromium, and DEHP) and tried to find realistic substitutes for them. They looked at about 100 alternative ideas spread across 16 different applications for which the toxins in question are currently used. For every application they examined, at least one alternative was found that could be employed today with lower impacts in the environment and human health.

Here are Jeffrey's notes for his keynote address at the Ethical Corporation conference in Philadelphia on June 14, 2006:

I find myself in a challenging situation!

Many people have asked me not to be here today because a representative from cigarette manufacturer Phillip Morris, a cigarette manufacturer will also be speaking at this conference. To speak at the same conference as Philip Morris, they say, would legitimize the company when it does not deserve to be legitimized.

I’m just getting back from the Ethical Corporation Conference. For anyone who was worried about lending legitimacy to Philip Morris by allowing them to attend and speak at the conference… forget about it. Vickie Bell, the Manager of Corporate Responsibility for Phillip Morris who attended the conference, had no aspirations to convince anyone that Phillip Morris is a “good” company. Having been with the business for 25 years, she just wants to have the opportunity to discuss with others how to design a path that begins to move the company from its current position as ultimate pariah to a business that deserves to sit at the table.

The lawsuits have had a traumatic effect (as they should have had). And the internal fear they created has caused the company to recede into the shadows as they try and map out a strategy to become a company that does more than kill people.

Are they thinking of getting out of the tobacco business? No. But they are interested in selling tobacco that doesn’t end up in cigarettes. They’ve spent a lot of money on a “reduced harm” cigarette, but they won’t say how much, and so far they haven’t come up with anything that anyone wants to smoke. So at this point they are nowhere. No transparency. No dialogue. But no illusions either!

There was no shortage of complaining about the $147 million that Lee R. Raymond, retiring CEO of Exxon Mobil departed the company with. Exxon shareholders didn’t seem to mind. Why would they when large company CEO’s make on average 300 times what the average worker earns. This kind of excessive largesse has become commonplace.

But it pales in comparison to what hedge fund managers made last year. Somehow these amazing facts have remained hidden from view.

Today I received a very thoughtful letter from the coordinator for Global Partnerships for Tobacco Control Essential Action. The gist of the letter was this: A conference on corporate responsibility I’m scheduled to speak at in Philadelphia in a couple of weeks also includes a speaker from cigarette-maker Philip Morris. Given that cigarettes kill and given the group’s suspicion that Philip Morris only participates in these kinds of events because they’re a convenient smokescreen (no pun intended) they can hide behind, the letter urged me to insist that conference organizers uninvite Philip Morris and to withdraw my own participation if they refused.

Last Thursday Andy Grossman Executive Director of Wal-Mart Watch headed up from Washington DC, the center of what some people think of as the political universe, to our headquarters in Burlington, Vermont, which we we like to think of as the center of another universe altogether. After writing up my visit with Lee Scott, Wal-Mart CEO, in the last issue of the Non-Toxic Times, it was like holding on to the other end of a long metaphorical branch.

Some things make you happy. And some piss you off. This pisses me off! REACH, the European Union’s new chemical regulation policy is one of the best pieces of toxin-related law I’ve ever seen. It’s going to go a long way toward taming the rampant use of untested (and unsafe!) chemicals in the products you and I use every day. So what happens?

Okay, so there’s no film at 11. But we do have the run-down on some key bits of news that rumbled across our radar over the weekend. In this case, that would include some new research saying our tiny exposures to pollution are starting to add up, the first review of President Gore’s (sorry.. did we say that out loud?) summer blockbuster, glowing praise for (really) Wal-Mart, and more.