Eco-Business: a Big-Brand Takeover of Sustainability by Dauvergne and Lister - Book Report/Review Example

Eco-business: a big-brand takeover of sustainability Book review By Department It is difficult not to notice that ecology is in trend now. Drinking Coca-Cola, wearing synthetic clothes, buying products in plastic packages is out of fashion. Most people want to drink water from environmentally friendly source in Tanzania, wear pure cotton, and go shopping with a rag bag. The ideas of reasonable, ecologically responsible life are supported not only by extreme «green» or by celebrities today. The solid part of middle class has become ecologically friendly in order to show the status and express their concern regarding environmental problems. The average consumer now considers nature protection to be his duty; however, he does it in the most habitual way by making purchases. He will not invest money in the researches connected with air clarification or new fuel invention. He will buy the hybrid vehicle and will drive it believing that his contribution is already made. Marketing specialists have noticed this tendency in society long ago. In recent years the culture of consumption has changed dramatically. Eco-friendly things, which look even better than their less useful originals have substituted harmful, expensive, dysfunctional products. Global corporations have caught up the trend of environmentalism and started running businesses in a new way. What are the real motives of such prominent shift of companies from environment neglecting to the sustainability policy? The authors of the book Eco-Business: A Big-Brand Takeover of Sustainability promise to reveal the interest of famous global companies in sustainability. In their opinion such environmentalism supported by big brands is leading to abigger ecological problems rather than to their solving. Thus, the book addresses each and every buyer in attempt to shed light on global corporation politics of environmentalism. Most consumers can hardly find the answer on the question what we observe today: corporate responsibility or intentional greenwashing. Peter Dauvergne and Jane Lister try to explain the difference between real ecological policy and marketing initiative in a logical and persuasive way. The authors try to prove that the world needs ecosystems restoring and maintaining and not products quality improvement. However, as a generation of consumers we all are easily disguised by crafty marketing of corporations. The authors of this book aim to demonstrate motives, mechanisms, real accomplishments of global richest companies and give consumers the chance to make conclusions themselves. Peter Dauvergne and Jane Lister claim that ecological trends in businesses cannot stop the process of pollution or global ecological loss as their primary aim is to “control supply chains more efficiently and increase brand consumption”(2013). The book also reveals that sustainability is used as a business tool which unexpectedly leads to risks increasing and adding to global economical crisis. The explicit thesis which Peter Dauvergne and Jane Lister state is maintained by the number of examples and data with staggering amount of companies’ names. Another disturbing point, which the authors emphasize, is the incredible influence of the corporations. Big brands have power to eliminate non-profit organizations, form international codes, and influence governments. The book also dwells on the concept of eco-business in order to avoid ambiguity with the concept of sustainability. In the first part of the book the authors make a general overview of the companies aiming to stick to eco-friendly politics. Dauvergne and Lister have made a decent research in this sphere and have managed to mention almost all world big brands and their efforts in sustainability maintenance. In the last ten years the number of companies making big promises and commitments regarding environment improvement has increased significantly. General Motors, Coca-Cola, British Petroleum, Starbucks, IBM, Dell, Walmart, Apple, IKEA, Samsung are in the list of the world famous brands, which aim to change the whole concept of leading a business. Walmart and Coca-Cola claim it is possible to avoid any waste and save energy with more productive working mechanisms. Johnson & Johnson are aimed to take care and protect the health of people and the planet in general. IBM and Dell propose to recycle their own products after they are outdated proving that they can avoid waste in manufacture. Most of these famous brands switched to the eco-friendly politics just a couple of years ago, in the beginning of the 2000s. The authors explain that such a significant increase in popularity of eco-business tendencies is caused by transferring of great parts of manufacture to Asian countries, especially to China with its boosting economy. Brazil and India are not far from China providing world economy with almost 3 billion of consumers and the possibilities to outsource the manufacture. Such changes in global economy force big brands to look for new ways of management and recourse security, and eco-business has become one of this innovations. One of the main aims of switching to eco-business is looking for the ways to reduce recourses, energy, and waste in the process of manufacture. With outsourcing of manufacture to Asian and Latin American countries chain supply control gained special value in the business. Much loss of income for the big corporations is caused by inefficient supply chain with certain fails in manufacture, packaging, and delivery. Big influential companies were doomed to switch to eco-business in order to satisfy the consumers, save recourses, and lower the energy. In order to remain competitive and to adjust to non-stable world economy big brands are forced to be eco-effective. Moreover, eco-efficiency permits the companies to “reuse and recycle the products” (Dauveregne & Lister). Another advantage of eco-trends implementation in business is relatively fast payback. For instance, according to the authors, FedEx has managed to return its ecological investments in a couple of years. Eco-business strategies can be divided into several categories: preserving energy and managing carbon, decreasing the amount of packaging and its recycling, reducing the quantity of water used, and cutting down waste and toxics. Energy saving tendencies are especially popular among electronic giants such as Nokia, IBM, Dell, Canon, Apple, Samsung. All these companies are trying to reduce the power needs on their multiple products. Cloud computing is already implemented innovation that helps to advance computing recourses with smart volume providing for information storage. It was an amazing discovery for me that energy saving in buildings adds to general cost reduction sufficiently. Walmart and IKEA decreased their expenditures only with the help of lightning reducing in the stores. Such companies as Levi`s, Nestle, Coca-Cola have decided to implement “water-neutral” policy that means taking and returning equal quantity of water of the same quality. However, Dauvergne and Lister failed to provide exact results of the effectiveness of this policy, which I found important to understand whether these claims became real or not. Changes in packaging are also stimulated by the revenue increase possibilities. “Lightweighting” is the strategy that presupposes paper reducing through “redesign and material reduction” (Dauveregne & Lister). However, numerous companies use the concept of package reducing in order to mask the price increase. Tiny, “greener” packages contain fewer products inside and lead to larger margins. Waste is also the source of redundant expenditures, thus, elimination or reducing waste production is another advantage to the product value increase. Walmart collects and recycles plastic bags, while Dell offers free recycling of the old gadgets. All these initiatives evoke admiration of the average consumer; however, the authors do not get tired of reminding that possible profit goes first. Moreover, companies play with eco-responsibility of the consumers forcing them to buy smaller items in order to remain environmentally friendly. The companies also started imposing sustainability requirements on the external suppliers in order to achieve greater control. Big brands are predominantly operate via outsourcing, thus, the supply chains take a lot different stages. In order to optimize the supply chain the companies use such tools as tracing, sustainability reporting, certification and eco-labeling and other. Supply chain control allows the companies to learn all about its suppliers and to know exact places of where the materials come from. The companies which have regulated successfully their supply chains made their name on this. Thus, Home Depot boasts that it is aware of all the forests which come to their manufacture. All in all, strict supply control increases business awareness and accountability of any company procedures. Dauvergne and Lister (2013) conclude that the influential companies utilize supply chain regulations in order to improve transparency “to meet the stakeholders` expectations and convince the customers that their sustainability commitments are meaningful”. Global influential companies are utilizing Internet and advanced software programs to track the products in a supply chain. Such a control allows managing recourses in a more efficient way. Big companies are also concentrated on finding the best ways of documenting of supply flow in order to stabilize and decrease the costs. The power of big brands is also increasing immensely as they owe the hot spot in every category of the products. Big brands now can efficiently conquer with the economies of the countries in general. “The rising power and rule making legitimacy of big brands within global supply chains is shifting power within sustainability governance towards the world biggest retailers and brand manufacturers” (Dauvergne & Lister 2013). Big companies realized that their competitiveness depend on efficient cooperation. Eco-business serves as reasonable factor to establish collaboration between competitors, organizations, governmental structures. Such cooperation is based on the high principles in reality is only increasing the power of the corporations. Moreover, governments and non-profit organizations cooperate with big brands as many of them consider that such partnership will help to achieve more environmental gains. For example, NGO, Sierra Club and Greenpeace are forced to collaborate with the most influential world brands such as Walmart, Unilever, and Coca-Cola due to the inability of governments to address important environmental problems appropriately. Nevertheless, it is clear that such a partnership is regarded as inevitable; the results are hardly satisfactory for both parties as businesses naturally seek profit in any kind of collaboration Mere interaction between big business and environmental organizations add to the credibility and image of the companies. For instance, Walmart and Environmental Defend Fund cooperation aims to guarantee the access to the customer base in order to advance the ecology. However, it seems that such cooperation resembles advertisement. The authors mainly try to provide the arguments of big brands involvement into eco-business only due to their own profit interests. However, according to Lister and Dauvergne “to some analysts, big-brand companies positioning themselves as sustainability “thought-leaders” and “watchdogs” is paradoxical at best, and at worst devious and hypocritical – a corporate tactic to control the sustainability agenda.” The thesis is repeated frequently in the book supported by fresh brands names and arguments. What is really changing with environmentalism policy implementation is the level of world consumption. The influence of sustainability politics on consumption is very significant as the big brands aggressively imposing “new” goods to “new” possible buyers. From the marketing perspective sustainability is regarded as an efficient business tool rather than charity arrangement. As the income of big brands can be maintained only with a help of high sales, fast impressive turnover, and obsolescence of the products, companies need to search for a new ways of advertisement, manufacture, and selling. An excessive choice, low prices, and eco-friendly policy only stimulate constant consumption. With such a policy, the consumers of the particular brand feel involved in the global ecological initiatives and receive positive impulse from buying eco-friendly items. “If you support ecological production of goods in Africa and help the economy of the developing country, then you are definitely a good person who is taking care of the planet”. Thus, the impact on the environment is negative as the number of products advertised, sold, and bought increases sufficiently. Moreover, substituting the term sustainability with eco-business has led to negative tendencies. Sustainability presupposes business running in the realm of social and ecological norms while eco – business utilizes sustainability in order to achieve better consumption and subsequent higher income. Therefore, the authors have managed to find another argument against eco-friendly policy of the big brands. It is phenomenal how the authors have collected the data about all the companies as they often refer to famous brands in the text. Such well-known companies as Coca-Cola, Walmart, and Apple are frequently used for proving this or that observation. For instance, discussing the problem of world water shortage they represent Coca-Cola annual water usage and claim that it is equal to the city of 1.5 million people in the US. Peter Dauvergne and Jane Lister also emphasize that water efficiency is a profitable eco-business, and, for example, IBM has saved more than $4 million on that. Other big companies are using substantial amount water and among the latest eco trends is water neutrality proclamation. It means that the companies are going to use and return equal amount of water. However, Dauvergne and Lister explain that ‘no big brand is even close to becoming water neutral’, but, unfortunately they do not prove it with any facts. In general, the authors lack persuasive arguments to prove their forceful “no” on the question whether eco-business can halt the rise and the harmful social consequences of global ecological loss. Mostly the authors keep repeating already mentioned facts and stick to proving negative effects of brands on the environment. They also try to emphasize that brands` cooperation with ecological organizations can serve as doubtless evidence of dirty politics. I suppose the book desperately lacks precise data and exact numbers. Taking into account that the authors set the goal to prove that big brands are playing not fair game it would be reasonable to provide the readers with economic statistics of environment loss and companies revenues. Personal observations and catchy writing manner help to keep the reader`s attention, nevertheless, the authors, have probably defined their target auditory as average middle class consumers and not as professional statisticians and economists. In my opinion, the book is highly recommended to those who are enchanted by big corporations like Apple or Coca-Cola and their ultra-modern products and staggering marketing. The book will be extremely interesting to those working in marketing as eco-friendly trend has appeared 10 years ago, and its peak is still expected. It is possible to learn how to implement environmentalism in business gaining even more, achieving better control of the supply chains, and reducing materials. Thus, running any business without understanding the principles of successful marketing of the richest brands of the world is impossible. Environmentalists will get disappointed with the book as well as other humble consumers who believe that driving Toyota Primus will eventually save the world. For those who have opened their eyes and have realized that corporations rule the world along with governments there will not be any painful revelations. Big brands use sustainability as an efficient tool in achieving higher income by stimulating consumption. What irritates me in this book is that the authors keep repeating the same arguments in order to prove that big brands are more interested in their profit than in ecological benefits and eco-business serves as an advertisement, a useful tool for achieving this goal. However, Dauvergne and Lister fail to mention that despite big brands` final goals environment receives its benefits in waste reduction and recycling and recourses decreasing. And the question naturally arises whether we should concentrate so much on the negative aspects of eco-business neglecting its positive effects. The authors also do not give their conclusion on further actions for the simple consumers. They understand that the world cannot decline Walmart, Coca-Cola, Apple, Nike, Samsung, Jonson & Jonson, IKEA, Home Depot just because they use eco-effectiveness in order to increase sales. It seems that the ultimate message of the book is “keep in mind that the road to hell is paved with good intentions” with no further pieces of advice or explanations. If the book was written for a an average consumer thus he/she has to receive author`s concrete instruction or direction about the further information disposal. Revealing materialistic intentions of the big brand resembles yellow journalism, in my opinion, as every aware and open-minded person understands the principle of economy, where the profit comes first. Nevertheless, the book can be the impetus for further detailed research of interdependence between big companies` profit and their eco-effectiveness policy. It will be possible to concentrate on such aspects as image of the company or consumers` perception of the company involved into eco-business. References Dauvergne, P. & Lister, J. (2013) Eco-Business. A big brand takeover of sustainability, Cambridge: M.I.T. press. Read More