One challenge I see in the world of sustainability is the assumption that only perfect motives will lead to good results. While perfect motives are a great thing, if we wait around to find them we won’t get very far. We should welcome positive results from mixed motives. After all, it is really the positive results that matter.
Saving The Ozone Layer
In their book — Can Business Save The Earth — Lenox and Chatterji share how business can help. To be fair, this isn’t just a simple positive tale of altruistic businesspeople. There also isn’t an overly optimistic view that everything good that can happen will happen. They are not saying everything will be okay if we just chill out. (They do spend a decent amount of time praising how Elon Musk has helped the world become a better place. This hasn’t dated well, but time makes fools of us all).
One issue they point to is the phasing out of ozone-depleting substances. Younger people might not realize what a great success this was. It is important to remember that positive results can happen.
The ozone layer protects the earth from a lot of harmful UV rays. Unfortunately, by the 1980s we had adopted materials that depleted this layer. A lot of attention was focused on the negative impact of the chemicals (mostly CFCS) in aerosol sprays and making fast-food packaging. It was a significant concern.
The good news is that the world got together, created the Montreal protocol and, as you can see in the graph, progress on improving the environment was dramatically effective. There is an obvious positive lesson, there are things we can do if we actually commit to doing them.
Positive Results From Mixed Motives
An interesting point in the fight to save the Ozone layer is given by Lenox and Chatterji. They highlight the involvement of DuPont, the big chemical company. The company was initially fighting attempts to phase out CFCs as it sold a lot of these chemicals — after DuPont made chemical and these were a bit of an industry staple. Yet DuPont changed when it saw a commercial opportunity.
By innovating a solution, DuPont was able to convert what was a low margin commodity business (CFCs) into a higher-margin business in which it had a significant intellectual property (i.e., patent) position (HFCs).
Lenox and Chatterji (2020) page 136
DuPont changed its tune when it could sell a higher margin solution (HFCs) to the problem of CFCs. (Of course, HFCs now have their own issues but that is a different point). The DuPont executives might not get into heaven on the back of that choice, but the ozone layer benefited massively. Positive results from mixed motives are still positive results.
Big Consumer-Facing Companies Have More To Lose
Imagine two companies one of which is small and/or no one has heard of it. One of which is consumer-facing and well-recognized by the public. Which do you think is most likely to care about not getting into a scandal? The well-recognized company fairly obviously. This is not to argue the managers are objectively better people. They just have more to lose. The motives of the big company’s managers might not be pure but if they help make the world a better place out of fear of a consumer backlash and not through altruism is the world any less a better place?
For more related to Our World In Data see How To Make The World Better and Denial, Doom, Or Informed Optimism
For another book by Michael Lenox see The Path To 2050
Read: Michael Lenox and Aaron Chatterji (2020) Can Business Save the Earth? Innovating Our Way to Sustainability, Stanford University Press