“As Companies Abandon Climate Pledges, Is There a Silver Lining?”

Ben Elgin, reporting on the current wave of corporate retreat from climate actions:

“I am heartened by the alacrity of the retreat and the ferociousness of it, because I think it uncovers the reality that we all need to understand, which is companies aren’t going to save the planet,” says Ken Pucker, a professor at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy and former chief operating officer at apparel maker Timberland. “The quicker that people understand and integrate that, the better.”

[…]

“I would happily spend the rest of my life changing lightbulbs and retrofitting buildings,” says Auden Schendler, who ran sustainability at Aspen Skiing Co. and its parent company, Aspen One, for 26 years, before recently stepping down. “It’s incredibly gratifying, it saves money, it reduces pollution, it makes buildings run better. But here’s the only problem: It’s not a solution to the climate problem.”

Instead, Schendler and others argue that a company’s political actions are vastly more important than its pollution-trimming efforts. Any environmental bona fides should be measured by whether—and how vocally—the business supports government regulations that require all market participants to go green.

Unfortunately, most companies have talked a big game on climate while working to block or water down the very policies that could drive real progress. […]

[…]

As Schendler, the former Aspen executive, puts it in his new book—Terrible Beauty, which critiques corporate sustainability tactics—it’s long past time for company leaders to get on with the “hard, unpleasant and nasty” work of political activism, including publicly calling out peers who aren’t matching their rhetoric with actions. Anything less, as the recent corporate retreat illustrates, is a dangerous illusion of progress.

Companies take voluntary actions to stave off and undermine calls for mandatory policies. Those who are retreating from voluntary actions will not voluntarily ask for mandatory policies. It’s only going to be a “silver lining” if the rest of us make companies use their political power to advocate for climate policies that cause short-term pain.