It’s never been, and now that the 47th is inaugurated, it’s less of a “priority” than it’s ever been in North America! If the Republicans get their way, they are going to roll back climate change legislation back to the Early Modern Era, and by that I mean the formal definition of the Early Modern Era, which Historians and Scholars will tell you was between 1914 and 1945.
Based on the fact that they managed to stack the Supreme Court to get their long-term goal (which was part of decades long planning) of overturning the 1973 decision of Roe vs. Wade, if you think they’ll be happy just dismantling the EPA and rolling back the 2007 Emissions Reporting Act, you’ve got another thing coming! They’re going to do their best to go back … way back … after all,
- the 1999 Emissions Standard for Passenger Vehicles
is going to get in the way of their fight against electric vehicles and China’s dominance (unless, of course, you buy a Tesla … at least until the 47th tires of First Buddy) and the return to big pollution muscle cars to soothe their big egos - the 1990 Oil Pollution Act
is going to get in the way of fracking, piping, and other means to increase oil production, distribution, and burning - the 1984 Hazardous Waste Amendments to the RCRA
is going to get in the way of chemical production and utilization, needed by big Food and big Pharma to eliminate anything from nature they don’t have a patent on - the 1976 Resource Conservation and Recover Act (RCRA)
is going to get in the way of profit if they have to replant forests, repair environmental damage from strip-mining, minimize fresh water usage, etc. (after all, big companies like Nestle need those 59 million gallons of water more than the citizens of California do … and you can bet they are NOT the only corporate overtaxing public water systems instead of building their own desalination plants and using ocean salt-water … but yes, blame the Democrats) - the 1974 Safe Drinking Water Act
requires them to spend a lot of money (that these governments apparently can’t afford) not only filtering and purifying the water that flows through municipal pipes, but monitoring the quality throughout the system since the dissolving and rotting infrastructure (which has not been properly invested in across the majority of the US since the 70s) makes it not only susceptible to leaks, but contamination from pollution - the 1973 Ocean Dumping Act
prevents them from cheaply and easily disposing of their (hazardous) waste in the ocean (because it’s apparently too expensive otherwise) - the 1963 Clean Air Act
means that they can’t burn anything or create chemicals that can pollute the atmosphere and us, when that’s often the cheapest or easiest route … after all, it’s not their fault certain chemical processes create by-products (that’s just nature, right?) and, at the end of the day, it’s our problem we can’t afford industrial air purifiers or decontaminators, right? - the 1955 Air Pollution Act
means that these companies can’t operate if their plants could create hazardous by-products that would pollute the air en masse (if they cant’ afford to prevent the pollution, and apparently they can’t) … and … - the 1948 federal water pollution control act of 1948
because this means they can’t just direct their chemical and hazardous waste to the nearest river (that runs to the ocean and takes it away) … and that’s apparently the only disposal method they can afford
… and, then, we are back to the early modern era!
And you know this is going to happen to the full extent possible as Big American AND Canadian corporations are already leaving the Global Corporate Alliance as they know they won’t be subject to to any goals once the 47th and his hand picked oligarchs get their way. It’s the Ferengi MBA Rules of Acquisition all the way now, and the best deal that makes the most profit is one that doesn’t have to pay the climate bill that WE are going to get stuck with when our health fails and WE have to pay rising medical costs.
So, please dear LinkedIn Procurement Evangelist, cut the bullcr@p about how this is going to be the year of Sustainabilty, how your application is going to save the world, etc. etc. etc. because, in big corporate, NO ONE CARES! (Do we have to remind you that the CEO role has the highest rate of psychopaths of any profession, even surpassing Lawyers?) As I already myth-busted in my series on 2025 2015 Procurement Predictions and Trends, we’ve had this BS pushed upon us for the past two decades, and some of us are tired of hearing about it. (SI should know! It ran the first cross-blog series on Sustainability back in 2008!)
Yes, Sustainability is the right thing, but no one cares about the right thing if it costs more! All you have to do is change how you ask the question to get the truth:
Is sustainability important to you?
Consumer: Most definitely! I only want sustainable brands!
Corporate: Yes! Our mission is to be the most sustainable …
How much more will you pay for a product/service that is proven to be sustainable?
Consumer Minority: Maybe 3% to 5%, it is important to me so if I have a few extra dollars, I’ll go sustainable and consume less.
Consumer Majority: Maybe 1% or 2%, money is super tight you know! Some months I struggle to pay all the bills and keep my children fed!
Corporate: NOTHING! If it doesn’t reduce costs, it’s not sustainable as a business practice!
Or, you could just ask the Founder of Trade Extensions (now Coupa Sourcing Optimization) who was one of the first to ask the questions this way back in their Sustainability Survey of 2014, over a decade ago, who more or less got precisely these answers. (They focussed on customers, and found that the vast majority would NOT pay more than 5%, ever, and if you wanted a majority of customers to buy into sustainability, you needed to keep cost increases under 2%!) Nothing has changed, especially as the average consumer buying power has continued to decrease across the First World as greater and greater shares of wealth end up in the hands of the 1%.
And yes, Europe might introduce a few new regulations and keep the ones they have, but all that does is relocate the multi-nationals to countries with leaders that don’t give a cr@p about the environment because they are so poor that they can’t even feed the majority of their people. And yes, Europe can regulate hazardous materials, etc. on what’s coming in, but all that does is ensure those companies that choose to stay in the market (while producing goods that just make the cut) charge more, because adhering to the regulation cuts into their profit, and after some of the worse run companies get forced out or leave on their own, there is less competition.
And as long as short term profit is the #1 motivation, nothing is going to change. So please STOP the preaching. No one cares, it’s not going to happen, and too many startups buying into this fantasy are, sadly, wasting time and resources on products and services no one is going to buy — especially in the SaaS/App space.
If you can’t invent more sustainable technology that costs less, it doesn’t matter how good your tracking software, reporting application, or advisory service offering is. Either solve a fundamental problem with revolutionary new cost-effective technology or stick to real Procurement, which, sadly, is a fundamental problem in most companies even though we’ve had decent solutions in Source-to-Pay for two decades!