Might as Well Dig in Our Heels, Then
by Joshua Malbin on Feb.28, 2010, under Politics
That’s how I imagine the first thoughts of CEOs and chairmen of boards upon reading this:
The cost of pollution and other damage to the natural environment caused by the world’s biggest companies would wipe out more than one-third of their profits if they were held financially accountable, a major unpublished study for the United Nations has found.
The primary reaction is supposed to be shock that these externalities add up to so much, I suppose. And it is shocking. But anyone with a passing knowledge of the current relationships between business and government in America and China, to take two highly important examples, has to have a sinking feeling in his heart.
“It’s going to be a significant proportion of a lot of companies’ profit margins,” Mattison told the Guardian. “Whether they actually have to pay for these costs will be determined by the appetite for policy makers to enforce the ‘polluter pays’ principle.”
For that, taken collectively they have the appetite of a single anorexic sparrow.