When I was in elementary school, the cafeteria switched to disposable plastic trays because the paper ones hurt trees. Stupid, I know… but are today’s initiatives any better?

  • Wats0ns@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    I think there is two important points that you haven’t considered:

    • Information asymmetry: in economics, this is the situation where one party has more/better information than the other. Of course a big corporation will have more information about a product I’m using that I would on every product I use, especially given that they can hire as many specialists as they want. Because of this, consumers should not be expected to take care of all societal change through their choices

    • You seem to imply that these companies only exist to satisfy a customer need. While this is partially true, this completely omits the fact that since 15 years, every company has a marketing department, whose sole purpose is to suscit this need in the consumer mind. Company are not just need-fulfilling machines, but also self feeding systems. You can’t talk about the fact that renewing your phone emits a lot of carbon without talking about the fact that every phone company spends millions at making you want to renew it