The Rambs

Individual vs Corporate Sustainability

Disclaimer: none of this is researched fact, it is purely my own opinion and experience. Please don't think anything written here as 100% true, because it very likely is not.

So, the environment. An essential part of all life on Earth. Lately a lot of attention has been drawn to sustainability and how it's achieved. Most of the focus on sustainability has been put upon individuals (use less plastic; recycle what you can, bike instead of driving) when, really, individuals have very little effect on the environment as a whole.

Sustainability is "avoidance of the depletion of natural resources in order to maintain an ecological balance." Essentially, sustainability is about consumerism, paying attention to what we consume and how we do it in order to protect the environment and/or slow the advancement of global warming. Ultimately, individuals have very little effect when it comes to sustainability and the overall environment. An individual can only do so much in their household to reduce their carbon and ecological footprint on the planet, and an individual has a very small footprint anyways. Corporations, whether they're factories or places of business, such as a restaurant,have a much larger footprint and effect on the plant. Corporations have a much bigger consumption and output of natural resources and single-use goods that sustainability media focus is all about.

Corporations and businesses produce tons of trash in a single day, and consume much more resources powering what they do than an average household, so why is the media generally all about individuals when it comes to sustainability? I theorize it's because it's much easier to blame the overall individuals, and if all the blame is on individuals it can push people to buy more "sustainable" products. Products such as reusable grocery bags, metal straws, etc. but are these products really as sustainable as you think? Well, the push to make these products probably doesn't help the environment at all, and the effect of these products exists, yes, but it only creates the desired effect if lots of people live more sustainably and continue to do so. The whole idea of sustainable and eco-based products is to help the environment, ignoring the corporate greed that pushes companies to make these products and gain more profit because of a media sensationalism around the environment, so they do have the desired effect but only with effort put in.

I'm not against sustainable products or anything, I'm just saying when it comes to individual sustainability it doesn't matter if you slip up when you're trying to do right by Mother Nature because corporations are having a much larger and worse effect on the environment than a person putting number 6 plastic in a number 1 plastic recycle bin or something. By all means, being aware of what's better for the environment and buying better for the Earth products is totally awesome and your choice, but corporations should be getting more of the spotlight when it comes to the media and the environment.

I'm not really sure if that even followed the whole idea of what this was going to be about, but this whole collection is just rambles, so it doesn't particularly matter if I gooff on a tangent. Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed it! Please vote or comment if you liked it or have any thoughts, I'd love to hear it (see it? Since this is all just typed words). :)