{"id":4315,"date":"2023-12-18T22:21:19","date_gmt":"2023-12-18T22:21:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.manchester.ac.uk\/global-social-challenges\/?p=4315"},"modified":"2025-01-17T15:40:19","modified_gmt":"2025-01-17T15:40:19","slug":"green-capitalism-is-this-really-the-answer-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.manchester.ac.uk\/global-social-challenges\/2023\/12\/18\/green-capitalism-is-this-really-the-answer-2\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Green Capitalism\u2019: Is This Really the Answer?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Article by\u00a0Ruby Fowler<\/strong><\/p>\n

Photo by micheile henderson<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/p>\n

With so many businesses acting as driving forces for environmental change, making huge technological advancements to the way society functions, and making \u2018going green\u2019 a trendy alternative for consumers. Surely this trend is a force for good, churning the change to renewable ways of living? But do green capitalist movements conceal the true change that needs to occur to combat the ever-pressing need to address global warming? Is this just another way to keep capitalist agendas rolling?<\/p>\n

Scott Prudham (2009) draws focus to the nature of \u2018Green Capitalism\u2019, seeing entrepreneurs as performers for the green capitalist cause. He argues that the \u2018entrepreneurial subject (acts) as an environmental crusader\u2019, trail-blazing the way towards positive change for the planet. Consumers take note and the media give the floor to enterprises promising big change through their efforts and expenditure, providing answers to this pressing issue of how we can adjust our lives to fit with our planetary crisis. This may seem so positive, yet Green Capitalism just seems to be a way for entrepreneurs to fit environmentalism into their profit-seeking agenda, with profit over planet. With these morals in mind, can we really expect genuine movement away from our current destructive lifestyles?<\/p>\n

Due to the structure of business operations, we cannot expect CEOs to be acting out of the goodness of their hearts. Bakan in his book, The Corporation <\/em>(2004), spoke with Friedman, a renowned Economist, and summarised how he felt that \u2018The executive who treats social and environmental values as means to maximise shareholders\u2019 wealth commits no wrong.\u2019 Many would agree, as why does it matter for the reasoning behind doing good, if it\u2019s genuinely helping our society become greener? Yet is it truly believed that market competition could pull us out of this mess? Many sociologists argue not. I will assist in explaining why this simply is not the answer.<\/p>\n

Capitalism, to prosper, relies on consumers and their willingness to accumulate the goods businesses offer, driving profit and further investment into businesses\u2019 growth. John Urry (2009) raises how our lifestyles in the present day now depend on \u2018pleasure seeking, novelty acquiring\u2019 experiences. Consumption and the temptation of marketing fuel our desires to acquire more and more to fulfil our status. Just because a product has been labelled as \u2018green\u2019 or \u2018sustainable\u2019, does this change anything about the root of the product and why it\u2019s been produced? Just because businesses start to use recycled packaging or change from plastic to cardboard doesn\u2019t mean that any issues are being solved. The need to keep producing only to create meaningless products is causing greater harm to our likelihood of reaching any genuine progress towards saving our planet. By businesses making products that seem to have \u2018green\u2019 roots attached to them only allow us to continue our trend of over-consumption.<\/p>\n

Alan Schnaiberg points to \u2018The treadmill of production\u2019, whereby there is a \u2018relentless scaling up (and) intensification of production\u2019 (Orr, 1980). If capitalism, in the way we now know it, continues to feed this never-ending cycle, it can only be detrimental to our climate crisis. Continuous sourcing of raw materials through mining, all the energy used to create the product, for it all to end in landfill. The green glow of profit fuelling this non-stop spiral of damage. This is why we\u2019re in the crisis we\u2019re in. It\u2019s time for us to admit that this soft approach to our climate crisis simply isn\u2019t good enough. Green Capitalist messages, as progressive as they are towards us loosening our grip on the methods we traditionally rely on, from petrol ran cars, to electricity sourced from non-renewables, their motives provide a weak standpoint for truly resolving our planet\u2019s issues. PLCs will only pursue green values if there is money attached to it. Is this really the solution that can pull us out of this mess? For real, inclusive changes to occur, we need incentives other than profit to fuel our emergence out of our climate crisis. Money-generating motives can only get us so far.<\/p>\n

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