State of the World 2004: Purchasing for People and Planet

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• State of the World 2004
• Purchasing Power: Harnessing Institutional Procurement for People and the Planet
• Online Feature: Consumption

Worldwatch Live Online Discussion

Lisa Mastny: Senior Editor

April 30, 2004 - 2:00pm EDT

Through the things they buy, large institutions wield great influence over the future of our planet. Nearly every purchase an organization makes, whether it's a ream of copier paper or a new office building, has hidden costs for the natural environment and for the world's people. By adopting greener purchasing practices, institutions can help minimize their impacts on some of the world's most fragile ecological systems.

Submit your questions now and join Worldwatch researcher Lisa Mastny on April 30 to discuss the potential environmental and social benefits of greening institutional purchasing.

Steve Conklin, Worldwatch Institute: Welcome to Worldwatch Live. Today's Guest is Worldwatch Research Associate Lisa Mastny. Lisa will be answering your questions about green purchasing and how we can encourage more responsible buying practices. Welcome, Lisa.

Lisa Mastny: Thanks, Steve. It's great to be here. I'm looking forward to an interesting discussion on "buying green."

Rochester N.Y.: What can we do (besides switching to certified organic meats) to change the agricultural practices of large multinational corporations like Cargill who have created the entire Mad Cow/prion situation with practices like feeding cow by products to chickens and then feeding chicken manure (soiled bedding) back to cows as "winter feed"?

Lisa Mastny: You raise a very serious concern, and one that is unfortunately getting worse as a greater share of the world adopts large-scale industrial farming practices, which are often not just inhumane, but also unhealthy for both animals and people.

In addition to choosing meat products from organic producers who feed their animals on pasture--and not the grains and animal by-products you mentioned--one important step people can take is to reduce their overall meat consumption. Reversing the human health and environmental problems caused by our appetite for modern meat will ultimately require eating fewer animal products. According to Canadian scientist, Vaclav Smil, producing just one calorie of beef, pork, or poultry requires 11-17 calories of grain, whereas animals raised on pasture require little, if any, grain. As a result, a diet high in grain-fed meat can require two to four times more land than a vegetarian diet.

In addition, consumers can let agribusiness know that they will no longer buy meat from factory farms, where the crowded, inhumane conditions create the perfect environment for food-borne diseases, such as Salmonella, Camplyobacter, and E. coli, to spread.

Fort Lauderdale, Florida: What do we do as a people to have influence over large institutions that have a influence over the planet and us?

Lisa Mastny:
Whether we realize it or not, each of us can have influence through the countless interactions we have with large institutions everyday. As consumers, most of us buy our food from large supermarkets, our clothes from large clothing manufacturers, and our cars from large automobile companies. These institutions thrive on our demand. As a result, they are often eager to make changes that enough consumers ask for, particularly if this will ultimately boost their overall market. As a result, we have more power as consumers than we might realize. We need to take it upon ourselves to contact these companies and demand that they provide the products we actually want to buy--such as, for example, organic foods, non-toxic cleaning products, or fuel-efficient cars. With enough consumer demand, the often higher costs of many of these products should fall. In most cases, these companies aren't going to change their practices or product offerings unless they see a real benefit in doing so, such as meeting visible consumer demand.

Similarly, many of us work in offices that are affiliated in various ways with larger institutions, whether through contracts for the purchase of office supplies or through our employer-sponsored retirement plans. We can have an influence by encouraging our workplaces to switch their buying power to more environmentally sound purchases, even if this means starting small, e.g. with the kind of coffee or copier paper the office buys.

Finally, we also can have influence through our own personal investments. Those of us who hold stocks or other investments can introduce or support shareholder actions that encourage companies to be more environmentally responsible. Alternatively, we can choose to boycott companies that we feel are not upholding our values.

Ultimately, the best place to spur change is within our own sphere of influence.

Chiba, Japan: Every day millions of tons of earthís precious resources are transformed into the most toxic waste ever produced by human civilization: weapons. The world spent 1,500 billion dollars on military last 12 months (the US share: 1,000 billion dollars ñ 52 cents in every dollar of Federal Funds - while 35 million Americans live at or below the federal poverty level). In your opinion how can people exercise their sway to cure this psychosis?

Lisa Mastny: That's a tough one! You mention some statistics on military spending, and indeed the information on US spending is actually quite good compared to the rest of the world. But most of us, as citizens, in fact receive fairly limited information about how much our governments spend on the military, and what exactly this money goes to. The estimates coming from different sources are all over the place, which is a reflection of the fact that most governments aren't very forthcoming, and some are hiding/concealing part of their budgets rather actively. So I would say that the first order is greater transparency with these numbers, so the average person can get a better sense of how imbalanced global priorities really are.

In most cases, the military is a totally inappropriate tool for addressing the challenges most societies face. We can see this playing out in Iraq now, where winning a "war" seemed to be easy, but resolving the underlying problems can't be achieved by military means at all. In fact, because so much of the world's conflict is internal, it's not a stretch to argue that military spending often translates into the government being able to be MORE oppressive (rather than defending their own citizens). Spending more on the military means having less funding available for other important needs (social, environmental, etc.), and it's precisely those needs that, if met, can help reduce the potential for conflict.

Unfortunately, these issues and tradeoffs are rarely covered or addressed in today's media, which is one important tool for "arming" people with the information they need to take action towards change.

France: Business Organizations are concerned by costs (direct : what they pay; indirect: what they will pay). How greener purchasing policies could be financed (supported) and greenless policies been taxed (baned) if the governments do not agree on things like tokyo protocol? Will customer attitude toward the companies be enough?

Lisa Mastny: You raise an important point about the need for a multi-pronged approach to green purchasing. While consumer demand is an important way to get businesses to change their practices (see above response), it alone will not suffice. Government regulations play a very important role in laying the ground rules for corporate activity--indeed, without it we would not see the many safety and environmental features that exist on products today.

But of course, governments can and will need to do much more. Unfortunately, as we have seen with the Kyoto Protocol and many other efforts to gain environmental consensus among governments, the government is not always working exclusively in the peoples' interest. Large corporations--whether they are oil companies or large agribusinesses--often run the show, and have a disproportionate influence on policy. As individuals, we need to let our governments know that we won't stand for this type of undermining of the public interest.

Miami, Florida: Dear Lisa, first of all, I would like to share with my appreciation for what this organization does for the planet. I come from a third-world country, where we see better than in the US the things that mankind is doing. Sometimes, governments do not do much in order to solve the present situation. On the contrary they help companies that harm nature establish on their land. My question is: how big are the chances that the WorldWatch Institute establishes formally in one of those countries in order to act directly against those companies that harm us so much?

Lisa Mastny: Thanks for your kind words, and I'm glad you appreciate the work that Worldwatch does. As a global organization, we try our best to engage in active partnerships with many organizations working towards sustainability around the world. We currently have two affiliates in Europe--Worldwatch Norden and Germanwatch--that help us disseminate our ideas and policy recommendations across the continent. We also have strong partnerships in Brazil and several other developing countries, and we collaborate with a wide range of international publishers to translate our work into 30 or more languages, to ensure that we reach as broad an audience as possible.

While we typically don't act directly against companies, we do our best to identify and expose the challenges that we see as impeding global progress toward a more sustainable world--whether it is corporate behavior, unsound government policy, or public inaction.

Miami Lakes FL: For someone like me who is passionate about making this world a better place to live and who wants to be more conscience about the products they purchase, what would you suggest could be done to better educate these people on how to find things out about different products?

Lisa Mastny: One of the biggest challenges in the green purchasing movement today is the lack of sound information about the environmental attributes of most everyday products, from appliances to cars. While manufacturers in the U.S. are required to disclose the use of certain cancer-causing compounds and other health-threatening ingredients, they generally are not required to detail most of the environmental "bads" associated with their products. In many cases, these impacts are simply not known.

Several more environmentally conscious companies (Volvo comes to mind), however, are beginning to publish more detailed information about their activities and their products--for instance, the carbon emissions associated with the product, or the chemical compounds used in manufacturing. I would encourage more of this behavior. Not only do these companies become better corporate citizens, but they are also offering consumers the information they really need to make more informed choices in their lives.

Of course, the public also needs to know to look for this kind of information, which is where increased education comes in. I think in general more could be done to raise public awareness about the existence of "eco-labels" that identify more environmentally preferable products. People also need to realize the power they have as consumers to contact these companies and demand more transparency about the products they buy.

Washington, DC: Do you know of any legislation geared towards green purchasing in the government? If so, do you know how well it is being implemented?

Lisa Mastny: Surprisingly, there is quite a bit of green purchasing activity happening at the government level, both in the United States and abroad. I encourage you to look through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's website on "Environmentally Preferable Purchasing" (http://www.epa.gov/opptintr/epp/), which details a wide range of these activities. In the U.S., green purchasing has been much more successful at the state and local level than at the federal level--with everything from getting government agencies to buy green power, to purchasing recycled paper and other products. Another good soource for information on current trends is the Center for a New American Dream's Procurement Strategies Program, at http://www.newdream.org/procure/.

As for how well this is being implemented, that is unfortunately a different story. What we're finding is that green purchasing (particularly at the federal level) often looks very good on paper, but when it comes to actually doing it, there is a significant lag. For instance, studies have found that many federal government purchasers aren't even aware of the existing rules--e.g. the requirement that all federal agencies buy recycled paper with at least 30 percent post-consumer content. Clearly, more needs to be done enforce these requirements, and to make those who fail to follow the rules responsible for their actions.

Finland: Are there any specific countries or areas that suffer the most of industrial nations consumption and how?

Lisa Mastny: This is an interesting question, and I don't have a specific answer for it, though it would be an intriguing research challenge. In many ways, the whole world--and not just specific countries-- suffers from industrial nations' consumption, simply because these countries consume such a disproportionate share of the world's resources, and many of these impacts are global. Take fossil fuel consumption and the impacts on global climate change. Europe, Japan, and North America--with roughly 15 percent of the worldís population--consume the bulk of the world's fossil fuels and account for two-thirds of the carbon dioxide now in the atmosphere. With less than five percent of world population, the United States emits 24 percent of the worldís total carbon from fossil fuels. U.S. automobiles (more than 128 million, or one quarter of the worldís cars) emit roughly as much carbon as the entire Japanese economy, the worldís fourth-largest carbon emitter in 2000. The impacts of carbon emissions, meanwhile, are global. Almost everyone is vulnerable to the effects of weather-related disasters, though of course, people in poor countries face a far greater threat due to risk factors that include inadequate housing located on flood plains and steep hillsides, weak healthcare systems, and heavy economic dependence on agriculture.

The impacts of consumption on individual countries will also vary depending on the type of consumption we're talking about. In the case of cell phones, much of the impact is felt in, for instance, the Democratic Republic of Congo and other African nations where coltan, a toxic metal used in the phones, is mined. The impact is also felt in places like China and Pakistan, where used cell phones (and computers and other "e-waste") are sent for recycling, exposing workers to their toxic components.

Steve Conklin, Worldwatch Institute: Thanks for joining us today on Worldwatch Live, Lisa. Thank you as well to all our guests who submitted questions.

Lisa Mastny: Thanks Steve, and everyone who tuned in. I enjoyed being here. For anyone who's interested in learning more about green purchasing, please visit the resources at the bottom of the page at http://www.worldwatch.org/press/news/2003/07/24/