Darby Strong

Playing point. Delivering the rock.

Corporate Visions

Having recently started the most corporate job I have ever had (and never thought I would have), I am reminded of the enormous impact a corporation CAN have in its own community and, ultimately, on a global scale.

Ray Anderson, founder and CEO of the world’s largest carpet manufacturer, Interface, and inspiring interviewee in the documentary The Corporation, acts as a perfect example. Anderson changed his apathetic ways and started to consider the negative impact his company was having on the environment after reading The Ecology of Commerce, by Paul Hawken, which was given to him by a friend.

From the Interface web site:

Ray heightened the company’s awareness and led changes in technology in an effort to move toward being environmentally sustainable. Admittedly, Interface is not there yet; however, the company is investing in developing processes and technologies to get it there. What this means, primarily, is learning to harness solar energy and provide raw material needs by harvesting and recycling carpet and other petrochemical products, while eliminating waste and harmful emissions from its operations. Ray believes that if Interface, a petro-intensive company, can get it right, it will never have to take another drop of oil from the earth. The philosophy guiding Ray’s passion for this cause is simply that it is not only the right thing to do, but the smart thing, too.”

If the decision makers of corporations are driven by the bottom line, as they almost always are, that’s cool, too. Decisions based in sustainibility often improve the bottom line. These ecological results positively affect millions of people, as companies who fail to move into this direction face eventual extinction. Adapt, or slowly die, which is fine by me.

I Hear the Eco


Sun Goddess by Jody Hewgill

In high school, having been exposed to the idea of recycling and Earth Day, I had thoughts of single-handedly changing the world. Now, I face the more daunting task of changing myself, realizing it is truly the only way to change the world.

I start at home. Beaufort County is one of the fastest growing counties in the U.S., and with sunshine on our side, I am bewildered by the lack of solar technologies offered to interested consumers. With all of the area’s advertising efforts to highlight the construction industry and its purveyors, I have yet to find a builder, developer, or any such company working to integrate sustainable building techniques and philosophies here in the Lowcountry. Savannah has a few wonderful and interesting programs developing, but Savannah is not Bluffton, and the closest solar panel provider is 2 1/2 hours away. What are the factors keeping a region so rich in resources, including abundant sunshine and wealth, from developing alternative building strategies?

For starters, South Carolina is one of the few states in the nation that does not offer financial incentives or green loan programs to people or businesses wanting to explore alternative energy resources. Without either, solar is still not a cost effective means of generating electricity. So where do we begin, as a community, to effectively implement a shift in thinking about the way we are doing business as usual?

I hope to answer this question, and many more, on Friday while attending a workshop entitled Real Strategies for High Performance Buildings in Savannah. This will be the beginning of a very long but welcome path I intend to walk towards a goal of self-sufficient, earth friendly living. Setting forth an effort to live a sustainable lifestyle using viable, alternative methods and helping to bring them to this community can only increase Mother Earth’s ability to sustain us all.

Absurd is an Understatement

Most of me wants to save my energy for more important matters, like breathing. This one, I can’t seem to shake, or allow to float on by with the rest of the atrocities in the river of outrage which I am nearly drowned by on a daily basis, thanks to the present administration our country has voted, er…allowed, into office.

Amnesty International has issued a report on U.S. “policy” in Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere, citing human rights abuses carried out by the United States and its military. Bush, Cheney, and the rest of the traveling circus have begun its smear campaign against one of the most respected human rights watch groups in the world. Respected so much that this same administration, who is presently denouncing the report as “absurd”, uses Amnesty reports to their advantage to further its own agenda against Cuba and China.

Worst of all, we accuse Amnesty of terrorist group affiliations. The neo-conservative Wall Street Journal stated that Amnesty’s latest accusations ”amount to pro-al Qaeda propaganda,” while the Bush/Cheney carnival infers that terrorists are using the agency as a means to spread their anti-American hate campaigns.

Are the people of this country truly going to snuggle up to this plate of bullshit like it is our Thanksgiving dinner, or our we collectively becoming suspect of an administration that outright lied to begin this war in the first place? Let me see…believe Amnesty International, an independent organization that has successfully worked to help human rights across the globe for over forty years, or the government that acts with an imperialistic psychology, which is presently at war, and is already guilty of atrocities at Abu Ghraib?

All I can do is laugh, but maybe what I need is a good, hard cry.