Towards the Ecological Corporation

Towards the ecological corporation:
by Davel Haenke

Part 5 of Ecological Economics and Bioregionalism, a cornerstone document for creating a regenerative economy.


I identify the following trends that will increasingly
affect corporations in major ways:

* More litigation by health-affected workers and the public.

* Better profit potentials for energy and resource efficiency,
by-products re-use and recycling, and on-site reduction and
treatment of toxics and pollutants.

* More pro-environment financial pressure from stockholders
and investors, particularly through the socially and
ecologically responsible investment movement.

* Increasingly positive consumer response to corporations ad-
judged to be "clean."

* A greater degree of social and ecological responsibility.

I suggest that this leads not just to a climate favorable to
producing and selling some "green" products, but to the necessity
of the creation of truly ecological corporations and businesses.

The evolution into a true eco-corporation has these implica-
tions:
* The corporation is re-structured, from the ground up, on
principles, policies, practices, efficiencies that are
ecologically determined, selling only ecologically benign
products. These modalities are built into the articles of
incorporation, the bylaws, the standard operating policies,
the manufacturing practices, the advertising, marketing, and
distribution strategies, and the public face.

* Full protection for the environment, workers, and the public
in at all areas and levels of production and distribution
is a given.

* Physical production plants and processes are ecologically
designed, constructed, and integrated. Operations are
oriented towards resource and energy efficiency, on-site
reduction, re-use, recycling or re-manufacture of by-products
into new products.

* Physical decentralization of production, marketing and
distribution.

* The "ecological audit" will become the basic guideline for
determining profitability and viability.

What does this eco-corporation strategy accomplish? It
effectively deals with the problems and opportunities inherent
in the trends mentioned above. Ecological self-regulation,
internalized, becomes a profit strategy. The need for government
regulation is minimized. "Externalities" are internalized,
becoming efficiency indicators and profit enhancers. This must be
the company of the future.

Transforming the mega-corporation

During the time of transition into an ecological economy
(functioning at true cost, with subsidies substantially dimin-
ished or eliminated), "mega-corporations" ( both national and trans-
national) may still be able to continue to provide functions and
services which their host societies have
not yet learned to do without. This can be true even after the
first stage of their transformation, which is the decentraliza-
tion and deconcentration of their physical operations into eco-
logically-scaled local and regional units. These units would be
pushed towards producing and distributing goods regionally.
Increasingly, they would use regionally available raw materials,
energy sources, and labor for production. Activities within the
structure of a given corporation would then be limited chiefly to
the flow of information and capital. Shipment of physical re-
sources and products over long distances must be minimized.