{"id":30,"date":"2008-10-31T08:17:00","date_gmt":"2008-10-31T08:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/earthsayers.tv\/blog\/not-an-option\/"},"modified":"2008-10-31T08:17:00","modified_gmt":"2008-10-31T08:17:00","slug":"not-an-option","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/earthsayers.tv\/sustainabilityadvocate\/?p=30","title":{"rendered":"Not an Option"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There is much talk in the news about how when the economy tanks, sustainability and its consumer-focused cousin, the Green movement, are moved aside.<\/p>\n<p>A recent article in Sustainable Life Media reported on a study by Cone Marketing and Duke University <span class=\"blsp-spelling-error\" id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_0\">Fuqua<\/span> School of Management that found &#8220;Consumers are more receptive to cause messages than ever before. More than half (52%) of respondents say companies should maintain their level of financial support of causes and nonprofit organizations, despite current economic woes.&#8221; Sadly, the article also noted another study by Duke indicating &#8220;marketers appear to be taking the opposite tack&#8230; chief marketing officers from Fortune 1000 companies predict that more marketers will be shifting away from their cause-related messages over the next year as a result of the souring economy.<\/p>\n<p>One wonders what planet these <span class=\"blsp-spelling-error\" id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_1\">CMOs<\/span> are living on if they think they can move away from sustainability practices and products.<\/p>\n<p>A year ago, Andrew <span class=\"blsp-spelling-error\" id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_2\">Zolli<\/span> in a March 2007 Fast Company <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fastcompany.com\/magazine\/113\/open_fast50-essay.html?page=o%2Co\">article<\/a> addressed the conflicting beliefs of &#8220;corporations having pressing obligations to civil society and the planet as a whole that go well beyond the economic sphere&#8221; and the clinical, value-<span class=\"blsp-spelling-error\" id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_3\">neutral<\/span> capitalism championed by Mr. Friedman who warned against &#8220;burdening business with wider goals.&#8221; Mr. Friedman argued it was &#8220;pure and unadulterated socialism.&#8221; Mr. <span class=\"blsp-spelling-error\" id=\"SPELLING_ERROR_4\">Zolli<\/span> went on to write:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The clinical, value-neutral capitalism of old is about to follow the recently departed Friedman to the grave.  <\/p>\n<p>There are several reasons why this is so, but the first should be obvious to any one but the most hardened anti-environmental skeptic: <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">If we don&#8217;t do something soon, we&#8217;re screwed. <\/span>A quick (and necessarily depressing) look at the numbers suggests that supplies of our most basic commodities&#8211;potable water, fossil fuels, arable land, clean air&#8211;as well as critical industrial commodities such as aluminum, steel, and even silicon, are all under stress.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I just don&#8217;t get where anyone has the idea that the movement towards sustainability is optional.<\/p>\n<div class=\"blogger-post-footer\">Visit earthsayers.tv and become a sustainability advocate.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There is much talk in the news about how when the economy tanks, sustainability and its consumer-focused cousin, the Green movement, are moved aside. A recent article in Sustainable Life Media reported on a study by Cone Marketing and Duke University Fuqua School of Management that found &#8220;Consumers are more receptive to cause messages than [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[667,38,36,37,39,666],"class_list":["post-30","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-cause-marketing","tag-cmo","tag-economic-development","tag-economics","tag-martin-friedman","tag-sustainability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/earthsayers.tv\/sustainabilityadvocate\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/earthsayers.tv\/sustainabilityadvocate\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/earthsayers.tv\/sustainabilityadvocate\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earthsayers.tv\/sustainabilityadvocate\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earthsayers.tv\/sustainabilityadvocate\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/earthsayers.tv\/sustainabilityadvocate\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/earthsayers.tv\/sustainabilityadvocate\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earthsayers.tv\/sustainabilityadvocate\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earthsayers.tv\/sustainabilityadvocate\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}