Mother Jones has a story by writer Bill McGibbon on the green initiatives of major corporations. McGibbon reflects on the paradox created when short-term profit driven corporations embrace what by nature have to be long-term thinking green initiatives. The results can be jarring:

It makes scant difference whether Wal-Mart starts stocking organic food or not, because the real problem is the imperative to ship products all over the world, sell them in vast, downtown-destroying complexes, and push prices so low that neither workers nor responsible suppliers can prosper. (In fact, Wal-Mart’s decision to sell organic food will almost certainly mean the final consolidation of the industry into the hands of a few huge growers that ship their produce across thousands of miles—not to mention that the people ringing up the organic groceries will still make below-poverty wages and taxpayers will still be footing the bill for their health care. There’s something gross about buying a healthy carrot from a sick company.)

McGibbon’s take is similar to that of the documentary, “The Corporation.” In that film, corporations are portrayed as innately profit-driven entities without a social conscience - sociopaths. As a result, they make choices that are not in the best interest of society.

While this argument contains some truth - maybe a lot of truth - it is ultimately superficial. Why? Like good and bad people, good and bad corporations exist in an overarching political and social environment. If we offer effective regulatory infrastructures like, for instance, ISO sustainability standards, good corporations see the benefits of adopting them and the overall market changes. However, if our government does not make strong compliance regulations, the public cannot fault corporations who, to be competitive, produce goods within the constraints of that regulatory environment. We, as the ultimate recipients of the good and bad results of those decisions, have only ourselves to blame.

So, it may be comforting for us to blame corporations for our environmental problems. They do deserve criticism. However, we must not forget that as citizens we have the choice of getting involved and changing public policy and, as consumers, of not buying from companies who are intentionally and without regret helping to destroy the place we inhabit.