Tag: sustainability

Easter and Earth Day

~ purplesage41 ~ 2 Comments


This year Easter and Earth Day are as close as they ever come, so I am writing on the day in between. They are followed by the ancient pagan holiday of Beltane or Beltain (Celtic), which was a major fertility festival in Northern Europe as the trees leafed out and it was planting time. Sine sources sa tThat humans coupled naked in the fields to show the plants and animals what there were supposed to be doing. That custom did not survive to our generation, but the Maypole as a courting dance is a reminder of that past. Also the Biblical command to be fruitful and multiply, a commandment we may have taken too seriously.?
Easter is a moveable feast governed by both sun and moon, the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. Its customs come from Roman, Celtic, and Nordic traditions, with the eggs and rabbits being Norse in origin, lilies Roman.. While Christians celebrate this holiday with the risen Christ (some literally, others figuratively, it is no small coincidence that it also sees the return of plant life in the northern hemisphere.
When I was in seminary, I was taking a directed readings in weekly sessions with advisor, who was (like many of the professors) a Methodist. He was curious about Unitarianism. When we met in Holy Week he asked “Why do Unitarians celebrate Ester>” I couldn’t resist a wisecrack. “Why, I asked, do Christians name their most important holiday of the year for the Goddess of the dawn). (Eos, Astarte, and Oestra are other forms of her name).
Ester blends nicely into Earth Day as we celebrate the resurrection of the natural world with a renewed commitment to be better stewards of creation. It probably need more than a day, but it is worth asking ourselves some of the basic questions of our responsibilities for the earth by asking ourselves at least once a week (Monday is good) the following questions (one of my answers in parentheses):

  1. What have I learned recently that makes me more concerned about h future of earth’s inhabitants? The menace of micro-particles of plastic in our food and our bodies, animals a well as human)
  2. How can I change my habits to reduce this threat to plant and/or animal life? (avoid using plastics to the extent possible, with the additional reason that they are made with fossil fuels. All my bowls for leftovers and cooking are now glass or some other non-plastic substance. I bring reusable bags to the grocery store. )
  3. How can I work with communities? (Encourage groups that eat together to use paper or glass instead of plastic and be prepared to wash dishes. Ask schools and other larger groups to consider more environmentally friendly products and local governments to bring about this change, especially shifting from plastic to paper containers at sporting events Use biodegradable trash bags for your household waste.)
  4. Ask what businesses and governments can do to reduce the tremendous volume of plastic waste or seek out opportunities to recycle more kinds of plastic. [Invest in firms that produce and/or promote degradable plastics or alternatives to plastic in many uses. Tax fossil fuels to discourage the use of that dwindling resource for products where there as more earth-

So, having eaten the chocolate marshmallow eggs and the Easter ham, and planted vegetables and flowers and shrubs (at least if you live in my part of the world), it’s time to reciprocate. What gift of change and action will you bring to Mother Earth in the days ahead in gratitude for all the nurturing we receive from her?

ESG and Me

~ purplesage41 ~ 3 Comments

A few days ago, I was in a gathering of some of my fellow retired academic colleagues from a variety of disciplines. Most if not all of the ten or so present seem to share my center-left politics—up to a point.  One of them asked me about Milton Friedman and his famous assertion that the sole responsibility of a corporation’s board of directors is to maximize shareholder wealth.  I gave my fairly standard economist reply, pointing to an erroneous interpretation of the Ford/Dodge Supreme Court decision in the 1930s and the more general historical meaning and purpose of a corporation charter in which they had certain public obligations in return for the opportunity for limited liability and eternal life (which definitely does not square with making them persons, as our current Supreme Court appears to believe). Two of my colleagues replied, isn’t that what you want them to do when you invest in a corporation—maximize your returns? No, I said, I want them to earn a fair return while acting like responsible corporate citizens, which is my reason for using ESG as a guideline in investing. At least two of them expressed surprise and perhaps even dismay at my response.

ESG as a criterion for investment decisions  has taken a lot of flak lately. Those three letters stand for environment (business practices that minimize environmental harm done in the process of producing a product or service), social (treating suppliers, employees, customers and communities as you would like to be treated in a role reversal), and governance (transparency and accountability).  Except in some  red states, where thanks to generations of underperforming public schools, people believe that these three letters spell WOKE.

There is some debate in the business literature about the relative performance of companies that Try to honor ESG in their corporate practices.  That’s a reasonable question to ask, but is it even relevant? If a company is destroying the environment, shortchanging its suppliers, extracting tax breaks from desperate local communities, exploiting its workers and deceiving its stockholders, but turning a nice profit, do you really want to encourage that kind of behavior? I will eventually get to the second in my three-part series on virtue. But don’t wait for that installment to think now about practicing virtue in your roles as stockholders, directors, management, customers, or board members. As a shareholder, you ae an owner, and as an owner, you are morally liable for the actions of that corporation, even if you aren’t legally liable.

I know that all of us are trying to swim to shore in a raging sea of information (and misinformation ) overload.  So I look for shortcuts.  ESG is one shortcut for at least increasing the likelihood of morally acceptable behavior.  Shopping with or working for B-corporations, who have accountability not just to shareholders but also  to workers, suppliers, customers and the surrounding  community spelled out in their corporate charters.

How and with whom we spend or invest our money is a measure of our values.  ESG makes the job of informed moral decision-making in the market easier for me. How about you?

A Merry B-Corp Christmas!

~ purplesage41 ~ 1 Comment

When I was teaching Ethics and Public Policy, I always assigned an article that described a very ethical corporation. Paid employees well, on-site day care, paid suppliers promptly, were good citizens of the community, good benefits program, and opportunities for promotion.  The only fly in the ointment was the company’s product. They produced instruments of torture. The moral of the story, like Tom Lehrer’s satirical song The Old Drug Peddler, is that one should do well by doing good.

Corporations want to be people in some ways and not others. Bankruptcy is easier for them than actual humans with burdens of medical or student loan debt. They pay lower taxes and extract all kinds of goodies from local governments hungry for jobs. One of the ways in which they are not like people is a lack of consequences for many of their antisocial actions. B-corporations are a partial answer to that question. (The B stands for benefit.)

B-corporations have corporate charters that make them accountable to all their stakeholders, not just their stockholders. Suppliers, customers, employees, the community, the environment. But they also should have an obligation that is not often included in corporate charters: to produce goods and services that are useful and do as little harm as possible.  So, I was delighted to find a B-corporation online that was offering a product that met both criteria. I can’t be too specific because I bought it for one of my blog followers. Let’s just say that it should contribute to the health of a member of my family by addressing certain allergies.

The last few Christmases have awakened my inner B-corporation. I want to have a good Christmas while doing good. Donations have always been part of our family Christmas for the past ten years, as well as reconnecting with friends and including strays where we can. Everyone gets to spend $30 on my credit card to support a project of Global Giving, ranging from tree planting to refugee relief to protecting endangered species. We also give a turkey to our local food bank and seek out other options for sharing. We enjoy the lights on homes and city streets and make our house festive with the ornaments and Santas that emerge from eleven months under the bed and in the closet.

We have cut back on the number of gifts in our family of twelve. No, I did not have ten children; that would be wildly irresponsible and not conducive to having a professional career! The family consists of me, three daughters, three sons-in-law, four granddaughters and one grandson-in-law. Everyone gets two gifts and gives two gifts. At the behest of my oldest daughter, we emphasize giving experiences and consumables—tickets to plays, movie gift cards, edibles. (I give a lot of books, but I consider them consumable, as I expect most of them will eventually wind up in a library or a yard sale or a friend’s house.)  We play family games while my sons-in-law fill in for my late husband by making minor household repairs, and usually go to a movie together.  An artificial tree serves from year to year, leaving a real tree to grow, absorb carbon dioxide, and provide shelter for wildlife. Preparing our Christmas feast is a joint effort, supplemented by snack foods I only make once a year—sausage balls, Hershey kisses wrapped in chocolate cookie dough, miniature cheesecakes, scones. Daughters and granddaughters do some cookie baking.

Each year there is something new along with all the old familiars.  One COVID Zoom Christmas featured a reading of Dylan Thomas’s A Child’s Christmas in Wales. This year’s innovation for me is finding a B-corporation offering a useful and consumable product.  What will your Christmas add to your family traditions this year?