 | June 22, 2009 |  |  | | | | THIS ISSUE'S SPONSOR
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Taking Care of Business
By Joel Makower
"Sunlight," as U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously put it, "is the best disinfectant. "When it comes to fomenting a green marketplace, how much sunlight is enough? How much is too much?
I recently began an online conversation with Daniel Goleman, author of the bestselling book, Emotional Intelligence, and, more recently, of Ecological Intelligence. Goleman posits that "radical transparency" -- that is, the unleashing of detailed data about the ingredients and environmental impacts of products and the companies behind them -- will spur consumers to make good, green choices. I like this idea in concept -- after all, a theme of my 1990 book, The Green Consumer, was that "Every time you open your wallet, you cast a vote 'for' or 'against' the environment" -- but I question whether massive information is the right fix for this problem.
I aired my critique of Goleman and "radical transparency" in a recent blog post, to which I invited Goleman to respond.
I'm hoping you'll respond, too. I'd be grateful if you would weigh in on the discussion. Is "radical transparency" a key missing ingredient in spurring a green consumer revolution? If so, should companies be compelled to provide detailed information about their products, processes, and practices? Who should do the compelling? Do enough consumers care or does all that data further confuse them? We've already seen companies like Clorox, SC Johnson, and Seventh Generation voluntarily disclose the full ingredient list of their products. It's unclear whether and how that has affected consumer choices.
I'd welcome your comments to either or both posts: add them here and here.
These are hardly idle questions. Large retailers like Wal-Mart are encouraging, if not requiring, companies to disclose a great deal of information about their products, and are expected to make buying decisions based on part on those data. ... Read More
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| | Featured News | Will Radical Transparency Save the Earth?
| By Joel Makower
|  There's a growing school of thought that unfettered information about the environmental impacts of our world will smoke out the bad guys and help the good guys win. I wish it were that simple.... Read More
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