Michael ([info]masterkill) wrote,
@ 2008-01-23 15:26:00
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The price of a thing is largely wages. (What proportion is wages? I guess it depends on the thing. But, say, a computer or car is mostly wages; a restaurant meal has a larger real estate component.) Anyway, if you buy a Prius, but Toyota's workers spend their money on virgin forest furniture and dirty electrical power, have you really achieved anything at all? Does the environmental behaviour of a company's employees matter?

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[info]kineticfactory
2008-01-23 03:49 pm UTC (link)
That depends on whether the fact that they work for Toyota (rather than earning their living some other way) makes them more likely to consume less sustainably.

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[info]masterkill
2008-02-02 02:24 pm UTC (link)
Agreed; what I'm wondering is whether anyone's actually done this research. I guess my point is: we're encouraged to reduce our carbon footprint. (At a microlevel, even: you can buy fancy devices that attach to your meter and tell you moment by moment how much power you're using.) But: what are the environmental practices of the company that produced your energy efficient car? (We care about this, though only a little bit.) And also: how green are the workers who built your car? (No-one really cares about this, as far as I can tell.) (Note that I'm counting the money paid to suppliers as "wages" as well.)

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