How to exploit green living trend?
My neighbor is a devoted environmentalist and she was telling me the following story:
The other day at BJ’s in Franklin, MA, employees were giving out fliers about how to live green. The fliers, of course, were printed on nice paper with beautiful colors (nothing environmental or green about them). On the contrary, they were printed on virgin paper.
A few minutes after she got the flier, she noticed that some employees were removing strawberries, the ones that come in plastic containers. She asked why they were taking them away. The answer was that they are past the selling date. She then asked what they were going to do with them. The answer was that they simply throw them in the garbage. Then she asked why not to donate them to a local food pantry. The simple answer from the employees was that this is the corporation’s policy.
Then she got angry and told the employee that her company was wasting paper giving away flyers on green living, and on the other hand, they were throwing away plastics and good-to-eat and compostable strawberries. In simple English, that is called hypocrisy. The poor (probably poorly-educated, minimum wage) employees, of course, had nothing to say.
BJ’s, as well as many other companies, are just capitalizing on the green living trend to sell more. They do not care about us living better lives, nor the planet; they are about making money. However, there could be a better business model. They could make money and be environmentalists and take care of their stakeholders not only stock holders. After all those BJ’s employees in high positions also live on this planet and need clean air, food, fuel and water. Why not to use better plastics or paperboard and compost the perishables? They could even give them away to people who compost. This is being short sighted.
Thumbs downs to BJ’s and any other company that sees green customers as cash cows to be milked for profits.
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