Eco Cents   (Read 3387 times)

An independent company would assess the environmental and humanistic costs of various products.  These would be eco cents, and it would simply be a price tag that would appear next to the regular cost of a product.  For example, next to a slab of steak it might cost $3.37, but then $8.00 in ecocents, where as the equal amount of salmon would cost $2.30, but $1.00 in ecocents.

This would create a massive market pressure to create products that are environmentally friendly and come from humane workers because the buyer would be aware of which products were environmentally friendly and treated their employees better.  And those who did, would be rewarded vastly because people hate being exploited, and it is the people that have the buying power.

These labels could be created by the government, by creating a department that drew on the IRS and FDA.

So it would work a bit like the "Carbon Credit" scheme?
 
The carbon credit scheme has been implemented in Europe and is hopefully soon to be added in Australia. Basically, my unuderstanding is that the government has a set number of carbon credits and sells them to companies. Carbon credits allow a company to output a set amount of noxious gasses into the environment, to put out more filth that have to purchase carbon credits. The credits can be sold between companies so a company has cut back on pollution can sell them on to a company that is still chugging it out. This basically means that in the long rund, it is cheaper for a company to reassess their environmental impact and cut back pollution than continue purchasing carbon credits. I good system that is based on money which is the only way to talk to large companies sometimes.
 
With these eco "sense" would they be for show only? I can't see this having a massive impact if they were just to illustrate how harmful they are to the environment. At the end of the day, the way to make most consumers change their purchasing habits is to hit them in the hip pocket!
 
In Australia, a lot of our farmers are in strife with drought but the public still buy products from overseas (even though it is mandatory for supermarkets to mark what products are Australian and what products are imported) because they are cheaper.
 
I think it would be good if the end consumer had to pay these eco cents on top of the product which goes to a neutral organisation that nullifies the impact of the product. The cleaner the product is to make, the less eco cents we would have to pay and the product would be cheaper thus purchased by the consumer!
 
Is that sort of what you were getting at?

The carbon credit system isn't for consumers, and is actually in many ways promoting pollution.  There is no way that this could encourage pollution, so I don't think it is like that.

I think you underestimate the impact this would have, and by a LONG shot.  When choosing between two products, when conflicted or close to conflicted on everything else they will go with the one that cost the smallest amount of eco cents.  I mean, most people just don't know what to do about saving the environment, but really want to make a difference.  If they had to spend 25 cents more at the store to save the environment, I think that they would.  I honestly believe that consumer activism is the best form of activism that there is, but it's as inert as people are oblivious.  This would force an awareness of the ecological and humanistic impact of products.  And it would create a HUUUUGE market pressure to support humane products.

I can see where your heading with this and seems like an alright idea apart from that alot of people would rather save their few cents and buy something cheaper than spend more money on something else that is better. Also the people that have always bought a certain item (from a certain label) and will continue to do so. Some people would of course try and buy the good one, but I can't see most people doing it. At the end of the day, you need all the money you can get usually (especially with prices rising so much and people who don't have much money in the first place)

Of course a lot of people would rather just save a few cents and let the environment and their fellow man suffer.  But this would allow people who DO care to support the good rather than the bad.  I would love to pay an extra dollar when I go grocery shopping to make sure that I don't support child labor.  And it isn't a matter of not being able to afford - the vast majority of people can afford to pay an extra dollar or two when they do their grocery shopping.

Also, if the person ringing you out said how much it cost in ecocents, and printed it on the receipt, it would make people feel bad.  And if someone created a website where it let people just pay that balance, a nonprofit, like donating to the humane society after feeling bad for kicking a dog, I think that it would make even more money.

I think we've been misunderstanding what you were saying.

When you were talking about eco cents, I was thinking this is a two way reward system.

A product is "marked-up" if the company producing it doesn't meet stringent standards in eco management. This additional pricing makes their products less attractive to consumers so gives the producing company an incentive to clean up their act. The "marked-up" difference is then given to an environmental company to offset what went into producing it. In other words, if the consumer has no choice when buying that product.

From a consumer stand point, products that are from companies that control their environmental impact don't have as large a/ or any eco cent markup and therefore aren't as expensive so they support an efficient company. If the consumer takes the eco cent marked up product the eco cents immediately offset the wastage in creating it.

That's what I thought you were saying but what you are actually saying is to implement something like what many airlines already have? A carbon offset program where you can offset your environmental footprint at time/or later of purchase. An amount is calculated based on what you purchased and the customer has a choice of whether to pay or not?

Karl, Rakuli, et. al.

Here is the summary of my basic idea which is very similar, I think, to Karl's. After that I will offer a brief comparison of the two proposals. In a separate (because of its length) post, I will offer some further discussion of my 'eco-labeling' idea in the form of a reply I once made to someone regarding a few questions they had about it. First the idea:


----------------------

Eco-labeling: Resource Conservation and Preservation as a Marketplace Mechanism.

The costs of all direct and indirect resource and environmental impacts must be included in the price of each product and clearly given on its label. That cost must be directly related to the total consumer price of the product such that, the more a producer controls the cost of impacts (pollution, resource depletion, energy extraction, etc.) the lower the cost of the environmental 'surcharge' and, therefore, the product.

The portion of the price associated with the eco-label costing is to be invested in a dedicated fund solely for the purpose of repairing and mitigating damage done by a product, from its manufacture and on through its use or consumption. The relation between eco-costing and production should be such that all products will, over time, become impact-neutral. The better a producer controls such costs, the lower the unit price of the product and the better it will compete in the marketplace.

-----------------------
A little comparison:

Yes, indeed, the 'eco-cents' proposal by Karl is very much along the lines of my 'eco-labeling' proposal.  I think the primary difference is that I viewed the matter as more than a mechanism that would rely on the good 'cents' of consumers, "market pressure", to buy products that were environmentally less noxious because they would cost less. The piece I add is that the additional eco-surcharge on a product will be directly applied to the remediation of damage that is done by its manufacture, distribution and/or use.  In that way, products not only have an competitive advantage if they reduce their environmental boot-print on the planet, but that those that don't are still required to bear the costs of clean up. That is, products which do more damage and therefore cost more than their competitors, not only are less competitive but will also be required to have a net-zero (or better) impact on the environment via their eco-cost contribution. Those that don't comply are still forced to clean up their mess (i.e., pay for its remediation).

I think that what Karl and I are saying identically is that the core of unconstrained environmental impact derives from it being kept hidden and removed from easy and visible market place valuation. It is by this means that these costs are deceptively and deftly shifted onto taxpayers, or those who suffer from the impacts. It is a tab which we pick up in toxic-cleanup, emergency rooms and health-care costs, global changes in climate, water and air quality and so forth.

It is the 'hiddeness' of things that allow these maneuver's to take place. 'carbon-credit' schemes still retain this 'hidden' character that relies largely on the shuffling of paper behind the scenes and the deflection of responsibility away from its source. Though I understand Euro carbon-credit programs have had some success, it is only a matter of time before the producing sector finds the get-arounds and legal sleight-of-hands to change the benefits of compliance into the mere appearance of compliance. Eco-costing and labeling puts the matter out- front where everyone can see it, every consumer must choose and where every failure must be accounted for and its accountability applied directly to the solution.  Most importantly, I think Karl and I are both suggesting that it is a capitalist mechanism which must be used to grapple with this problem on capitalism's own terms. Visible costing and remediation seems to fit the bill.

The thorny part of the matter is in the mechanism that evaluates and fixes these costs that all products sold in this country (imported or domestic) must pay. It must be entirely insulated from questions of economics and marketplace whinings, incorruptible, and allied only with the science organizations, universities and independent researches from which it will make its estimates of eco-cost. That's a very tall order. One I am sure huge teams of lawyers and lobbyists will attempt to assault from every direction. It will need to withstand those assaults. We have seen how 'economic considerations' have trumped every decision about health, safety and environment over the past 1/4 century.

Even in the current debacle of  bailouts for AIG, the matter is entirely left in the hands of some "macro-economic" consideration, to the point of violating the very rules by which the principles claim to be the bedrock of their own system - free markets. Ironically, it is the very 'hiddeness' of AIG's business dealings (especially in risk-taking and risk-assesment) that brought about the difficulty. Had people known about their liquidity problems, they might never have inflated the investment folio of the company.  The disappearance of AIG will not bring the economy of the world to its knees. Indeed, since AIG claims assets much greater than its current obligations, the market would normally require that AIG sell those assets to cover their obligations (the same as individual's are forced to do to pay their obligations). At the end of the day, AIG would simply be much smaller enterprise (the size it really ought to be without all the leveraging and margin props that made it seem so much larger than it really is).  In any event, those who would serve on an eco-costing board would need to be entirely insulated from such "economic" concerns - costs would be costs, and no amount of shuffling should be able to hide them. There activity would have to be entirely transparent to the public. Companies, of course, could make their best case about their own products, but that's about it.  Science reports would not be edited, costs would not be deferred or hidden and "making jobs" would not be an excuse for ducking responsibility. Their eco-costs would be right on the package where all could see them and pay them if they wished to buy our use the product.   

Anyway, though fraught with implementation difficulties (what I call 'administrative details') I think Karl and I both are suggesting something that cuts to the core of the matter in a way which applies the methods of the system to cure on of its own evils. - red