Viewpoints : Defining Industry’s Environmental Role

L ess than a decade after one of the most toxic chemicals known to mankind was cavalierly sprayed on the roads of Times Beach, Mo., turning it into a ghost town, businesses across the nation have rallied to the cause of the environment. Today’s celebration of the 20th anniversary of Earth Day has more corporate backers than its founders ever imagined.

But how far has business really come in terms of forging a proper environmental role? Sharon Bernstein asked six leading executives, economists and environmentalists for their wish list of what corporate America should do to improve the environment:

ALICE M. RIVLIN

Economist at the Brookings Institution, chairman of the governing council of the Wilderness Society and a director of Union Carbide

I’d like to see business, particularly major businesses that have an impact on the environment, take a long-range view. In the long run, business can’t operate profitably if it is degrading the environment. From the quite selfish point of view of the individual company, it needs to have not only an image, but a real program for being a responsible environmental citizen. This means taking care of toxic waste, avoiding pollution and other damaging emissions. It means working with communities to avoid environmental damage.

It’s sometimes difficult for companies to be as environmentally responsible as they’d like to be, because it’s costly in the short run. That’s part of the general problem of short-run focus in American companies. But I think if they take a long-range view, especially with the rising concern about the environment in the general public, it’s clear that long-term profitability will be aided by environmental responsibility.

FRED KRUPP

Executive director of the Environmental Defense Fund

Corporations should recognize that there’s an exploding demand from individuals and societies for them to invest in developing environmentally sound products, not just in developing ad campaigns that sound environmental. Seventy percent of consumers polled say they want products that are environmentally sound. Some corporations have realized that those who produce the truly good products to meet this demand will be the most competitive. The stakes are not only environmental quality but the very competitiveness of the American business sector. Because if our own businesses don’t wake up to this demand, our consumers will have to seek foreign sources for these products.

Because the greenhouse effect is an environmental problem of overriding importance, the most important products that corporations need to supply us with are high efficiency appliances, high mileage automobiles and ways of powering our society with renewable energy.

The advertising agencies have given us a throwaway society and effortless housekeeping, where instead of rubbing the stains out, we spray them away with more and more toxic cleaners. We’ve got to move to nontoxic products. We’ve got to stop pretending that choosing between paper and plastic bags in the supermarket involves any real choice, and instead start doing what the Europeans have been doing for years: use convenient string bags. We’ve got to move away from disposable razors and disposable pens, and toward durable goods.

The economy of the next 40 years will have to go through a massive restructuring. There will be certain goods that will be produced in much smaller quantities, but there will be whole new markets for environmentally sound goods. It’s a major transition, but we’ve done it before. We’ve gone from candles to electric lights, we’ve gone from wood burning stoves to coal, and from coal to oil.

DEAN L. BUNTROCK

Chairman of Waste Management Inc.

I would like to see every company take a fresh look at the relationship between its business and the environment.

The board of Waste Management adopted a new, strong environmental policy on March 7, which includes principles for compliance, pollution prevention and nature conservation, as well as for positive public policy, environmental education and cooperation with environmental groups.

It also sets forth a commitment to report annually on our environmental performance. I would like to see other companies adopt similar environmental policies, tailored to their specific businesses.

I would like to see federal and state agencies implement enforcement programs that more effectively ensure that everyone subject to environmental laws is in compliance.

I would like to see business, government and environmental groups, whenever appropriate, make more of an effort to work cooperatively on solving environmental problems.

Warfare in the press and courts often simply creates barriers and delays finding solutions to environmental problems.

RICHARD J. MAHONEY

Chairman and chief executive, Monsanto Corp.

I would like to see business as part of the solution and not as part of the problem. We have decided we’re going to be part of the solution--for Monsanto to have zero affect on the environment. That takes time. We started with a very important pledge on air emissions, to reduce them 90% by the end of 1992. But our real intention was to reduce air emissions to zero. And we have similar programs for all of the environmental effects of Monsanto.

I can’t speak for everybody in the business community and I can’t speak for all issues because there are some very intractable problems that don’t befall us at Monsanto. But I think if you’re in a leadership role you can call on your own people’s creative energies to solve the problem, rather than waiting for some person, whether regulator or legislator, to thrust on you a solution that may not be appropriate to you.

When you cut all through it, maybe the simplest answer is that it’s the right thing to do.

In the last couple of weeks, I find very troublesome the amount of pot shots at corporations as somehow having newly discovered Earth Day. There are some very sincere efforts to do what the public and we want to do, and ours is one of them. These are not publicity stunts.

WILLIAM D. RUCKELSHAUS

Chairman and chief executive of Browning-Ferris Inc., a Houston-based waste disposal company, and former director of the Environmental Protection Agency

Fundamentally, the most important thing business could do is comply with the rules and regulations established by the government for the conduct of their activities. If every business did that, our environment would be an appreciably cleaner place.

I think the really big environmental problems that we are going to face in the future are global problems, and what business could do on its own that would have the most beneficial effect would be to make sure that whenever they establish any kind of facilities abroad, they hold themselves to the same standards that they would be held to at home.

Otherwise, the resulting environmental problems could threaten, if not mankind, then at least free institutions.

J. MICHAEL McCLOSKEY

Chairman of the Sierra Club

Businesses ought to realize that they can better assure their future in American society and prosper more by being environmental leaders. They ought to do what StarKist did in saying it’s only going to sell dolphin-safe tuna, or what Conoco did in saying that their new ships are going to be double hulled.

It’s not enough to wait for and comply with regulations. The regulations can never adequately catch up with what they’re really doing. Thousands of new chemicals are developed every year and processes and products keep changing. The burdens to the environment keep changing all the time with a dynamic economy.

Frankly, American industries have not been good environmental citizens. Some of them have been, but too many of them thought they could get away with whatever they could and postpone the day of compliance as long as possible.

Thank goodness there are some industrial leaders that recognize that a time for a change has come. We need more of them.