A new study indicates environmental groups could help conserve resources faster if they’d spend more time trying to change the buying habits of big institutions instead of individuals. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
A new study indicates environmental groups could help conserve resources faster if
they’d spend more time trying to change the buying habits of big institutions instead of
individuals. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
We’re often reminded to buy environmentally friendly products… re-use… recycle.
But a new study reveals that a lot more progress could be made if environmental groups would
spend more time trying to convince big business, big institutions, and government to buy green…
recycle… and implement more environmentally friendly practices. Lisa Mastny is author of the
study from Worldwatch Institute.
“We don’t really think about the places we work and the supermarkets we shop at, places like that
do their own buying and in much, much larger quantities than we would do in a household. So,
larger changes can occur and on a larger scale if you approach institutions rather than simply
individuals.”
And Mastny argues many of those changes can benefit the institution… such as more energy
efficient lights that save on the power bill. Mastny adds green buying is not a solution to what
she calls the “world’s rampant resource consumption,” but it can lessen the impact.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.