Tuesday, July 07, 2009

This is not possible

Surely this article has it all wrong. How is it that these individuals are making their own economic choices, based upon their own criteria, without being compelled or forced by some governmental edict:

The phenomenon is initially American, but already a local chapter has been formed in the Flemish-speaking part of Belgium. The philosophy is simple: rather than boycotting shop owners for not doing enough for the environment, carrotmobbers use their consumer power to reward those that do.

What's new about carrotmob - the name comes from the carrot rather than the stick approach - is that it concentrates not on large corporations but on small neighbourhood businesses: the grocery store, the supermarket, the local restaurant.

"Everybody shops but it is not organised," Niel Staes of the Flemish chapter explained. "When you do organise shopping, you can get the shop owner to make an effort in exchange for your business." For instance: get the shop owner to invest some of the proceeds in saving energy.

"Instead of telling the shop owner: we're not going to buy from you anymore until you invest in making your shop more sustainable, we will go to his store on a particular day with a bunch of people to shop. In exchange we ask that part of the money we've spent is invested in green management."
Could it be something called "a market"?

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