Future Cost and The Environment
Posted 04 Jan, 2005 at 01:00 by brent in /World | Permanent link
One of the random thoughts that came to my mind is to apply a future cost to certain goods to represent their environmental impact against the best alternative. So for example if a wooden pencil had an environmental impact equivalent of say a dollar and an automatic one had an environmental impact equivalent of 50 cents, then the wooden pencil would have an extra 50 cents tacked on to represent the difference and would/should be used entirely to go towards remedying the impact it has on the environment.
You could also instead just apply the environmental impact equivalent instead of just the difference as well to ensure that the environment is maintained. Furthermore, companies could effectively reduce the cost of their goods to the consumer in a competitive manner by reducing the environmental impact and thereby reduce the additional charge that is passed on to the consumer.
The benefits that come to mind are that companies now have to have a rigorous environmental impact assessment to justify a reduction in a "standard" tax on their goods and the onus is now on the company instead of the government to pursue legal action should they fail to meet environmental standards. This could be a boon for getting money into the system applied to the environment. People wouldn't have to boycott since standard economic pressures will probably be much more effective to drive manufacturers to lower environmental cost.
It's an idea and I realize it has some flaws. Some examples are: Who determines the cost? Who manages the money--both collection and application? How does this work internationally?
Anyway, one of the ideas that has been jostling amongst my neurons.