Company Incentives for Going Green? 427
Greenie asks: "With fuel costs reaching record highs and more eco-friendly vehicles on the market than ever before, one has to ask, is it making a difference (yet)? NewEnough.com is an online retailer of new and surplus/wholesale motorcycle apparel based in West Texas. Recently, they posted a letter to the public on their website about how they've 'gone green,' and are offering incentives to their employees for switching to modern, fuel efficient vehicles (hybrid electric, diesel, bio-diesel...). While the specifics of their incentive program were not discussed, has anyone ever heard of larger companies offering a similar incentive program? According to Fortune.com, Wal-Mart is the largest employer in America. If Wal-Mart, McDonalds, UPS, GM, and Ford, the five companies that Fortune lists as having the most employees, all offered a similar incentive, more than 2,865,700 people would be eligible for incentive to go green. That could really start to make a difference for the environment. Now imagine the environmental benefit of every company in America making this same incentive offer..."
Going green (Score:5, Insightful)
If they really want to push more efficient automobiles, perhaps we could wean the American preference for the large SUV? I wrote about this some time ago here [utah.edu], talking about small car companies like Smart who really should be looking harder at the American market and employing creative marketing approaches to specific markets that would be most receptive to the small car.
Of course a real way of going "green" would be to simply make it easier for people to telecommute. We saw a huge interest in telecommuting a couple of years ago, but since then, many corporations have cut back on telecommuting or reversed earlier policies.
Programs to make broadband more ubiquitous and accessible would enable inexpensive video conferencing technologies (like iChat with an iSight), audio conferencing and the ability to be persistently available, which could be a bad thing for salaried employees though
WalMart?! Bahahaha... (Score:5, Insightful)
Government Stopping It (Score:3, Insightful)
The incentives... (Score:5, Insightful)
McDonald's: Buy our salads and lose weight; it will cut your fuel costs by not dragging your fat butt (which you must have got at Burger King and not here) around.
UPS: Don't take it there and waste gas yourself, pay us to.
GM and Ford: Trade in that old, fuel-inefficient sedan for a new, advanced-fuel-utilization sport-utility vehicle. You know you want to!
Not just to mock this, but what incentives do these companies really have for their bottom line that would inspire them to make this an issue? As a rule, top companies stay out of potentially politically-charged issues, and this is, unfortunately, one of those.
FYI... (Score:1, Insightful)
Ford and GM: not likely (Score:5, Insightful)
Recall that Ford and GM missed the hybrid boat big time, and are now struggling to catch up with Honda and Toyota (who are developing prototype hydrogen cars already). Further, the Ford Escape hybrid (Ford's first hybrid), while technically a hybrid, has roughly the same fuel efficiency as the standard model; the electric engine is used to better performance, not efficiency. Thus, it's not clear how much green benefit society would get from Ford employees buying Ford hybrids.
Something tells me that Ford and GM wouldn't subsidize purchasing their competitors' cars, especially given their dire financial situation. Don't expect Ford and GM to jump on this bandwagon.
A step in the right direction, but... (Score:2, Insightful)
So, if you could offer an incentive that would be enough to counterbalance those factors, then you might have something. Until then, saving the environment will be left to those of us who have the luxury of spending a little extra. Sad but true.
Paternalism (Score:4, Insightful)
Incentives aren't free ya know... (Score:4, Insightful)
Frankly, if I wanted to support 'greenism' at the cash register, I'd buy MYSELF a green fueled car. I don't really want to buy one for someone else, so I'd probably wind up looking up at companies whose prices aren't inflated by such things...
Re:Going green (Score:3, Insightful)
Boy am I all for smaller cars and getting people to give up their SUVs (although I'm certainly not holding my breath). It's frustrating to see so many of these (ahem) "sport" vehicles that will never go off a city street and almost always have one person driving sans any passengers. What's the point? My wife and I finally gave in and bought a minivan recently, not because we needed that much space or wanted a large vehicle, but because we have two young children and it seems like half of the state of California is in Pick-ups and SUVs. In the event of an accident, if we were in a normal car, the other guy's bumper is likely right at head level (add to that the "flow" speed on the freeways here, when not congested, is about 75 miles an hour).
I wish I could go the public transportation route, but thanks to the pitiful bus system in greater San Diego, I'd have to take 3 busses for approximately 2hours each way to get to work (to cover 20 miles) and with a slim margin for connections if any of the busses were late.
the SmartCar (Score:5, Insightful)
Some better ideas are coming along shortly, though. VW is coming out with their "twin-charger" engine cars (Polo & Golf, and in 2008, a Scirocco successor, possibly named the Rivo). A twin-charter Polo may get up to 69mpg - on gasoline.
Another idea is to use an efficient diesel auto - like the TDI Volkswagens currently available in most U.S. states. The TDI Jetta & Golf can get over 45mpg (some get slightly over 50; depends on how you drive, I imagine). Since these are diesels, you can run them on biodiesel and not only get great gas mileage, but also have much-improved emissions at the same time.
VW recently announced they're switching to common-rail diesels, so as to improve emissions.
And all this without resorting to an overly-expensive (not that VW is cheap, mind), overly-complex, not-so-safe-for-emergency-workers hybrid.
I'm really hoping that hydrogen injection system, H2N-Gen, actually comes to market and works as advertised. This is a device that injects hydrogen into the cylinders during combustion to enable around 97% of the fuel to be burned, thus almost eliminating emissions; should work on any internal combustion engine (gas, diesel, or natural gas). Let's hope it's also relatively affordable. "Another fine Canadian product (based on an American invention)"
I now return you to your regularly-scheduled Slashwhining, already in progress...
For sure! (Score:2, Insightful)
Yea, right. The fact that crap like this makes the front page of slashdot instead of being silently deleted along with black helicopter chaser posts that I'm sure they get a hundred of every day tells me this stupid idea isn't being seen as stupid by nearly enough people.... so expect it to be the next 'big thing' in freedom reduction by the leftist moonbat activists.
Incentive? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Going green (Score:5, Insightful)
Bingo. The idea that companies should offer incentives for "green" cars is bizarre, because there is no benefit to the company for employees having "green" cars. Companies are not in the business of pure philanthropy, neither are they social experiments. For a small company it might be possible if enough of the shareholders lean one way or another politically, but it's not viable for larger companies.
It's one thing for a company to organize a weekend charity drive, but to actually redirect revenues towards political posturing is nuts. If the cost savings for fuel efficient cars isn't enough incentive for employees, then maybe they're not the global panacea everyone says they are.
But telecommuting *benefits* the company, so it makes sense to encourage it for those jobs where its practical.
Re:yeah but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Going Green = Hell for Mechanics (Score:1, Insightful)
While there are a significant amount of trained mechanics/technicians, an influx of 2.6 millions possible new consumers might very well lead to a shortage of skilled labor in this field. Imagine bringing your hybrid car in for service and being told you can have it back in a month due to a backlog of work. You take it to dealer #2, and he says a month and a half, now you bring it back to dealer #1 the next day just to find out the wait list turned into 2 months...
Diesel (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Going green (Score:3, Insightful)
Going green? The USA? You're kidding!? (Score:2, Insightful)
The reds are not going to go green - ecology - earth-friendly - global-consciousness or whatever you want to call it. They are direct descendents of the Indian killers who believe that God has given them America as a promised land to do whatever they want with it with His blessing. They are the ones with the $30000 absurdly oversized giant 4x4 trucks parked out in front of the WalMart. These are the people who form the alliance between the fundamentalist churches and the multi-national corporations. They consistently vote against their own economic interest in the belief that allowing the global corporations free reign will get them a guaranteed ticket to heaven. They vote for the most reactionary politicians, fly flags on their giant trucks, and support with their children's blood any crypto-fascist or bone-headed foreign policy war or adventure. They support Jesus; they hate big government and liberals. As as the US economy holds together and they keep getting their checks from the feds, they will be 100% against any form of going green or environmental protection simply on principal. These people would rather kill you than listen to you explain about the long-term consequences of their bone-head mentality. These people aren't unique to the USA, but there are some many more of them in the USA than elsewhere because the USA has so much more money than other places.
The blues are primary city people. They are much more open to adapting to international environmental policies and going green. However their only hope of implementing a change in US government policy is to break the connection between the fundamentalists and multi-national corporations. Since they don't have the ability to offer the reds a ticket-to-heaven and would impose restrictions on the pollution generated by the corporations, their current prospects are bleak (Especially since they don't count the votes). These people will individually buy 'green' products, but they won't have any influence on the policies of the major corporations. As for getting WalMart to do anything progressive, forget it. It's a lost cause there.
The only way to get the USA to adopt 'green' policies is unbalance their economy. Whether this will happen without any serious organized international attempt to do is currently anyone's guess. But will the American people voluntarily adopt 'green' policies, don't hold your breath. It's most unlikely.
Support the gasoline tax! (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, no one wants to pay even more for gasoline! Many Americans don't realize that they already pay much less than people in other parts of the world.
Haha... right (Score:4, Insightful)
Unless those corporate incentives amounted to about US$20,990 I don't think so. Half these people would kill for any reliable transportation, much less some slick hybrid. Give it ten years for plenty of them to leak into the used market, then we'll talk.
Re:Going green (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Fuck the environment and you enviroweenies (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Going green (Score:3, Insightful)
Society benifits so the company does too, however the benifit is not cash so it doesn't make their bottom line look good.
"it might be possible if enough of the shareholders lean one way or another politically," Pepole from all across the political spectrum are "green", but somehow in the USA it is a "Liberal" idea.
But I think you are right, I doubt it will take off and TFA is probably just a gimmick to advertise motorbikes.
Keep dreaming (Score:5, Insightful)
Most Wal-Mart employees are limited to fewer than 32 hours of work per week simply to avoid giving them any benefits, so I doubt they'll offer up any enviromentally friendly car benefits soon, not that most Wal-Mart employees could afford a new car on their salaries in the first place. McDonald's is even less likely to hand out benefits - especially since a large number of McDonald's employees work at franchises, and doesn't pay well enough for most of it's employees to afford a car at all. GM is on the verge of bankruptcy and slashing benefits, while Ford isn't too far behind, as they're about to announce plant closings and thousands of job cuts. UPS pays pretty well and has great benefits, but their employees generally work long hours as drivers, so UPS would do better by just using greener delivery trucks.
This one isn't going to happen any time in the near future, and between rising health care costs and the continuing demise of American manufacturing, corporate America isn't too likely to jump on this one in the near future. What's really going to drive adoption of green products is Chinese production of them for use in China as they start dealing with the environmental impact of their population. Once China starts pumping out mass quantities of hybrid car batteries, solar cells, and fuel cells, all at dirt cheap prices, humans can enter a new age of green living.
Re:Got it backwards. (Score:1, Insightful)
Your going to tell me that someone living in the heart of suburbia who can afford a $40,000 SUV can't make room in their budget to lay out a few thousand dollars on home improvements that will reduce their energy costs? Or spend that same amount of money on a smaller luxury car then reap the reward of lower gasoline costs?
Sure, I agree with tax incentives and rebates for people who take the innitative and layout their money for solar panels, but I don't think the employer should be the one providing the incentive. The employers should worry about making their business operation more environmentally sound.
Re:the SmartCar (Score:4, Insightful)
> Overly expensive compared to, what?
Compared to their non-hybrid versions. (for hybrids that have non-hybrid counterparts (Civic, Accord, Escape, etc.), the hybrid version is always more expensive, if not much more so.
>> overly-complex
> Overly complex compared to, what? Yes, they're different than a regular car engine.
Compared to a regular car. What else would I have been referring to?
>> not-so-safe-for-emergency-workers
> Not as safe as, what? It's not like a tankful of gasoline is exactly the epitome of safety.
And a hybrid has one of those as well.
Re:Paternalism (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sure you'll be more than happy to go out with all your tax savings and personally do things like, oh, build interstates, build electricity distribution networks to *everyone*, research, design and implement military weapons systems, create regulations that provide clean drinking water and food products, pay for basic research and development in the Sciences, educate our citizens, police our borders, train spies and intelligence agents, make sure there aren't carcinogens in my air, food, water, police our cities, fight our fires, make sure pharmaceuticals won't kill me, send satellites into space so that I, and everyone else (except Brownie), knows that Hurricane Katrina is a Cat5 and heading towards NoLa, etc, etc, etc..... Oh that's right, corporations will do those things cheaper, faster and better than the big bad government.
I'm not sure if Libertarians are willfully ignorant, just plain ignorant, or lazy Republicans.
Re:Going green (Score:3, Insightful)
Bollocks. I didn't know my recycling, or riding my bike instead of driving was a political action, I thought it was a moral action. But we live in a time of political idealistic wackos, who think that a proper rejection of a claim is to call it the opposite end of the political spectrum.
A human and citizens job should be in part to steward the enviroment for the future. I see no reasons that corporations should be exempt from this. I think they have MORE responsibility to the enviorment than an individual citizen, since they have more means, more profit, and more culbability to the problems that exist today. there is no ethical way to reject that premise, really. (but I forget that this is
I don't see the word FORCE anywhere in the parent, no one is FORCING you to do anything. They are offering an incentive to do something good. It is sad that the incentive needs to exist, much less that people like you are arguing that there shouldn't even be that.
Whats wrong for a company to act responsibly, and offer a means for their employees to do the same? A lot of companies have earned a name for not being purely greedy, but also trying to do something good above and beyond profit.
overly-complex (Score:3, Insightful)
Overly complex compared to, what? Yes, they're different than a regular car engine.
Compared to a regular car. What else would I have been referring to?
Compared to a "regular car" in what year? I had a 1976 Chevey Monti Carlo I removed the engine from, dismantled then rebuilt the engine in my yard. I did the same for a 1979 Chevey Luv truck's transmission. I wouldn't even attempt to do these on new cars in a shop. If I were to attempt to on my Saturn, I'd need special tools to do anything, forget the diagnostic test equipment needed.
FalconRe:Going green (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want the majority of cars sold to be extremely fuel efficient the easiest way would be to artificially increase the costs of gas through taxation. If gas were $10/gallon with no chance of lowering people would A: Drive a lot less, and B: when they purchase a new car the fuel economy would be much more important to them.
The thing is the cost of ownership of a new car is kind of hard to judge, and depends how long people will be driving it. Assuming a 7 year ownership (beyond that it gets much more complex due to the car breaking down etc) we get a yearly cost of about (Purchase cost)/7 + yearly insurance cost + (Miles Driven/year)*(Cost of a gallon of gas)/(MPG). For many people if they actually did the math it works out that even with gas being $2.50/gallon it's cheaper not to buy a hybrid car! Wasn't there a study not too long ago showing that?
Of course people don't really use these equations when buying a car, but many rough estimates are considered, and it's probably remarkably accurate. Of course than the category of car (how fancy, status symbol, etc) come into play as well. But even than gas prices will likely factor into the purchase (unless the person is wealthy enough that they wouldn't bat an eyelash at paying $20/gallon).
That being said I'm completely against the whole idea of the government getting that involved with the affair. As far as companies giving incentives to employees. . . WHY the hell would they? If Walmart gave employees credits for buying hybrids they'd either have to pay their employees less, or raise prices or profits. Does that make any sense to them? I don't know what world
Phil
penalties not incentives (Score:2, Insightful)
so why do we pay companies (in tax breaks) to keep on doing something that is bad for the environment?
Would I pay my son to stop hitting his brother? - So why should I pay a company with my tax dollars to stop polluting. It should be the other way around. Penalize them, then we'll see a bunch of companies go green quick!
Re:Going green (Score:4, Insightful)
Minivans get a pass because people who drive them do so out of necessity, while most SUV buyers get them as a status symbol. When was the last time you saw someone driving around town, alone, in a Luxury-branded minivan with 20 inch magnesium wheels? The minivan is a sign of dedicated parents willing to drive a car that handles like a yacht, while an SUV is a sign of some asshole dumping money into a depreciating asset.
incentive (Score:3, Insightful)
The whole idea that people should received an additional incentive or reward for doing something is a big part of the problem.
The biological objective of greed in natural selection to asure resources to procreate. However, if the world suffers a slow energy death or fast bio-sphere collapese what future do your ofspring have ?
Simple survival should be the only insentive people should need.
Re:Going green (Score:1, Insightful)
Come on, supabeast! Enough with the blanket characterizations. I fail to see how driving a minivan relates to being a dedicated parent. Are you by any chance a parent who drives a minivan?
I drive an SUV. A 1990 Cherokee (and nothing Grand about it--this thing is no status symbol). It gets fair mileage, as it's not enormous.
It can usually be found on the back side of nowhere a couple of times a month, in all sorts of weather. Where cell phone coverage doesn't exist, and you care a lot about how well that four wheel drive system works. Why? Well, for starters, it's part of my job. It's also the part I enjoy the most.
Though you didn't say this in your post, I wonder how many people complain about the SUVs that never leave a paved road are ever off the pavement themselves. And if they're never off-road, how would they know anything about which vehicles are, or aren't, out there in the rocks and weeds?
To me, much of this discussion sounds like a bunch of urban fools who hate a class of vehicles, and are looking for justification. "saw someone driving around town"--not everyone lives in a town. There are some advantages to living as far outside of one as possible. Not everyone has a lifestyle just like yours! I guess that must be hard for you to imagine.
Re:Going green (Score:3, Insightful)
If every American made a commitment to use a less gallon a week (which would be easy for most of us) you are talking about tens, maybe a hundred million gallons of savings...