If you don’t regenerate Mother Earth, I won’t buy from you any more.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Manufacturers and Philanthropists beware. The tide is lifting. More and more consumers will be uninterested in your products if your products are not helping to regenerate Mother Earth. Two different examples — Coca-Cola and Patagonia. One chases profits while polluting the planet, and the other has committed to fighting climate change and protecting undeveloped land. Inevitably, we “consumers” will stop buying products that harm Mother Earth. Rather, we will purchase products from companies that love Her in word and deed.
CONTEXT
Read this about Coca-Cola from the Wall Street Breakfast: #COP27 — November 7, 2022 newsletter.
Backlash against Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO), one of the planet’s biggest users of plastic, erupted as soon as the multinational announced that it would sponsor the COP27. While the company has pointed to its signing of a global treaty meant to tackle plastic waste through a “holistic, circular economy approach,” as well as plans to collect and recycle a bottle or can for every one it sells by 2030, many say the policies are misleading and fall way short. Coca-Cola currently produces 120B single-use bottles per year, resulting in 3.3M tons of plastic packaging (its plastic use even rose by 8.1% between 2019 and 2021).
120 billion single-use bottles a year and growing!
Now, read about Patagonia and how Yvon Chouinard, its founder and CEO gave away his company in order to protect the environment.
In fact, while Chouinard may hope that his current generosity will inspire more capitalists to protect the environment, it was Chouinard’s very rejection of typical capitalist practices — his refusal to go public or sell his company — that made him the environmentalist and philanthropist he is today. The man who once said he had no respect for the stock market wishes to inspire a new form of capitalism, as if environmental destruction is a side effect of capitalism and not its very nature. (Brown Political Review)
“Hopefully this will influence a new form of capitalism that doesn’t end up with a few rich people and a bunch of poor people,” Mr. Chouinard, 83, said in an exclusive interview. “We are going to give away the maximum amount of money to people who are actively working on saving this planet.” (New York Times)
Or how about this new business — HOLO Footwear. Started in 2020, by co-founders and footwear veterans, Rommel Vega and Yuri Rodriguez, HOLO was created with a want to shake up the footwear industry by creating sustainable and attainable shoes made with recycled materials.
QUESTIONS FOR MANUFACTURERS
- Do you see the day that is coming when your consumers will judge your product not just by its quality or cost, but by how much it helps to regenerate Mother Earth?
- Do you see that “the day” is coming closer and closer, and will arrive within the next two decades?
- Are you preparing now for the impact Climate Change will have on every single piece of your business?
QUESTIONS FOR PHILANTHROPISTS
- If you continue to spend out at 5% a year, how much will you have in the bank while our environment collapses? It’s like this — the fires are coming through the forest toward your home and you refuse to spend your capital on fire prevention equipment because of the 5% rule. How does that make sense?
- Will you choose to spend out now in order to save everything? The Beldon Fund did, and so can you. 100 million spent out in 10 years, with intent to help build public and policy support for environmental protection.
- What is preventing you from being so bold?
QUESTIONS FOR CONSUMERS
- Money talks. Where you spend your money sends a message. If we consumers don’t want a product because we deem it to be harmful to Mother Earth, then don’t buy it. Thus the manufacturer have to adapt. It is a matter of supply and demand. When we demand differently, the market will supply differently. Are you spending your money in a way that helps Mother Earth?
- How important is it to you that you are identified as a “consumer of goods and services” rather than a “citizen of planet Earth?”
- What about your lifestyle are you willing to change to make a difference?
As Mother Earth collapses, consumers will change their priorities and that will impact manufacturers and philanthropies.
“If you don’t regenerate Mother Earth, I won’t buy from you any more.”
In 2020, I wrote the book LOVING MOTHER EARTH: Integrating Environmentalism and Spirituality. You can find chapter-by-chapter commentaries about the big ideas in this little book at www.loving-mother-earth.com, and here on Medium.
You can purchase my book on Amazon, and know that if you do, $5.00 from every purchase is donated to The Sierra Club.
Thank you for Loving Mother Earth. Follow me and I will follow you if, in truth, you are passionate about integrating environmentalism with spirituality. After all, we are in this together.
