I was inspired by the incoming administration, in a question at change.gov, to think about how can we green the USA?
What could the government do to really make us sustainable?
I’ve come up with a list of 10 things that I think might be effective.
Here’s the first three to think about:
10. Green the Presidency. Hire a White House Sustainability team whose role is to create a full environmental impact report of the presidency, then create and implement an aggressive footprint reduction plan. Send a signal of integrity and leadership.
9. Require companies to file a triple bottom line operating return every year. Base it on the Global Reporting Initiative sustainability reporting framework. How do you offset the extra cost of doing business this obviously requires? Subsidize it thru a ..
8. Shift from payroll to ecosystem taxation. A carbon tax is one instance of this. This will bring true cost accounting into our financial system (and the USDA has just set up an office of Ecosystem Services). We need to understand what our actions are really costing us. Tax the unsustainable use of sources and sinks, reward forward thinking behavior and the ability to give a person employment.
part 3 – yet to come
part 4 – yet to come
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I see only the last three points of the ten ideas. I’ll check to see whether i can find the rest in another part of the list.
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