re-Considering the Environment

To update the post below, I noticed last week that our printed emails at work no longer included the environmental plea. Instead, it only shows at the bottom of our email window, as it should.

Since our IT department is apparently among my readership (okay, they comprise my readership in its totality) here is another thing they could do to convince us to change our printing habits: change the message to “please consider the bottom line…and your paycheck!” The fact is that wasted company resources will diminish company profitability, resulting in either higher fees to our clients, loss of value to our stock owners, or decrease of funding to the payroll department. Now that’s motivation!

You’ll note that in both the US and the UK the populations operate a large number of automobiles. These populations are subjected to the same environmental agenda on a daily basis by the media and the same plea to reduce consumption. Yet only in the one country with financial penalties for owning large vehicles - in the form of outrageous petrol taxes for which US politicians could expect to be, well, shot – do we find frequent ownership of small, fuel-efficient vehicles. Warm and fuzzy slogans will never accomplish anything where brute economics are necessary.