The costs and benefits of being green

The number of political and social movements seeking popularity through their advocacy of environmental or green causes has increased markedly over recent years. While their growth expands to encompass wider segments of the population, environmental awareness can easily become watered down to express positive sentiments while failing to address the complexity of genuine participation. The overall benefits of adopting a green perspective tend to be elaborated at the expense of balanced and honest accountancy. There are of course inherent deficits associated with the green approach and proper documentation of these is essential for growth and development into the future.

A significant percentage of consumers have adopted various lifestyle measures which are designed to reduce their utilisation of essential resources like oil, coal, water, and timber. Because the focus is generally toward efficiencies delivered through singular and domestic applications, there is often minimal awareness of the infrastructure required to support commercial or industrial applications of any scale. Included in a recent survey of alternative energy sources were the applications of solar, wind, geothermal, atomic, and tidal. With the possible exception of atomic and to a very limited extent geothermal, these alternatives remain impractical in terms of their overall cost efficiency.

For a variety of reasons, consumers may choose to purchase organically certified foods and manufactured products. To meet current levels of demand for organic products, agricultural and niche manufacturing enterprises have taken advantage of generous incentive programs which facilitate the transition towards organic production. While these are commendable and deserve to be supported by further stages of government policy, there is little understanding or sympathy for the large-scale operations which depend upon the conventional inputs of synthetic fertilisers, pesticides, and pharmaceutical treatments for stock. Understandably, this position is complicated with the continual advancement and distribution of genetic technologies.

It is an unfortunate reality that many examples of organic and sustainable husbandry are only practical on a small to medium scale where additional labour costs can be offset through access to government subsidies and opportunities for value promotion and niche marketing. This is particularly apparent when organic production methods are transferred to isolated and developing regions without the benefits of a strong local market for these products.