The business of environmentalism

Environmentalists have long focused on laws as instruments for preventing or reducing pollution, preserving forests, and managing natural resources.

Legislation that serves these purposes is useful, even essential, to protecting nature from violent assaults, safeguarding the resources on which we depend, and maintaining the health of the planet.

But as powerful as they are, laws have limited utility. The rainforest, for instance, will not be saved by laws alone. Law enforcement--even military action--in defense of the rainforest can never be a complete solution to the problem of deforestation. Policing all of the jungle is thoroughly impractical; fines and terms in prison may only deter the criminals apprehended, and even then perhaps only awhile.

Very often, economic incentives are more powerful than laws. Economics can influence people more efficiently than legislation can: economic incentives operate in the absence of law enforcement or military force, and they operate continually. Significant monetary rewards provide strong motivation for action. And even very modest financial returns are very significant to those who need them to acquire the basic necessities of life.

One attempt to create an economic incentive for preserving the rainforest is the arrangement whereby individuals or governments contribute money to a fund, and the managers of the fund distribute portions to governments that have some ability to restrain those who would cause deforestation. Monies go to the governments when independent authorities get evidence, perhaps including images taken by satellites, that changes in areas of the rainforest meet certain goals.

Financial rewards for good behavior may help to generate progress--they might be a step in the right direction--but they are not complete solutions to environmental problems either. And they may produce undesired effects, like creating a class of people or a group of officials who derive income mainly from doing nothing to destroy the rainforest.

The complete solution to environmental problems must include business. Companies can produce greater benefits for nature than either laws or the distribution of cash.

This does not mean that companies should just find better places to drill for oil or just plant new trees after logging in ancient woods. It does not mean that companies should just position themselves as 'eco-friendly' and market their products as 'green'. It means that businesses must be transformed: Business leaders must become environmentalists. And environmentalists must get into business.

The greatest positive impact to be made on the environment will occur when the mission of business leads to the protection of Earth, when the goals of commercial activity are consistent with those that protect our planet.

Too often we tend to think of manufacturing and commerce as essentially opposed to environmental protection, at odds with the goals of the environmental movement. To be sure, many companies have plundered our world. But plunder is not the essence of technology or trade. And for the future we must remove it from every agenda. Our new creations must do no harm.

We are fortunate to have arrived at a turning point: a new age for engineering. Environmental crises, including adverse changes in the climate, can do more than threaten life: they can stimulate the imaginations of engineers, inventors and entrepreneurs. This time, we hope, the genius of humanity will help us work in harmony with nature as we satisfy our needs and desires in the worlds of our making.