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Comment by sheetjs | Hacker News Reader

> "If you want me to do things only for ROI reasons, you should get out of this stock."

While I agree with his sentiment, I wish he took a moment to explain that pursuing environmental sustainability may actually help the top line (rather than insinuating that those goals are net negative to shareholders)

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That's a rathole to avoid if you can. It may sound dismissive, but these guys are cranks, and their time in the spotlight is rightly to be minimized. 97%+ of shareholders understand that Apple goes the extra mile in sustainability and agrees with that approach.

Completely agree. Whether or not worker safety contributes to ROI should never be a question. Same with environmental impact.

But realistically you do at some point. Sacrificing 1% of profits for a 20% safety increase is reasonable and smart, but doing the reverse would never happen.

Environmental impact in particular is an endless money hole. You can always spend more money to be marginally better, and every company (and individual) has their cut off.

I disagree, mostly because you presented your opinion as black and white.

Apple has, what, > 10k workers? If it cost them $100 billion to prevent one software worker from getting carpal tunnel, your statement suggests that cost should be born by Apple. Similarly, if it cost the cumulative GDP of the US to prevent N amount of pollution, your statement suggests that Apple should go bankrupt preventing that pollution.

Back in the real world, I suspect we generally agree. The problem, IMO, is that companies (and consumers) aren't forced to capture the hidden costs of injuries/pollution.

I just disagree with your black and white assessment. The laws of economics mean companies have to assign dollar values to human life and safety, as much as we dislike the feeling it gives us.

Not all good decisions can be rationalized as having a known, positive ROI. I think it is a pretty safe statement to say that many big decisions must be made for other reasons.

When you take the decision, you may not have enough information to know if it's going to be good or not. But when you took the decision and still refusing to know how much it costed you and how it influenced company finances - it's just willful ignorance and unwillingness to face the facts. That is never good. For the sake of Apple shareholders I hope Cook actually knows the figures he was asked for, and refusing to publish them just as a PR move, to gain some fanboy love from bashing an unpopular target. Because if they genuinely spend money and refuse to count them, it's not good for the company.

> The laws of economics mean companies have to assign dollar values to human life and safety, as much as we dislike the feeling it gives us.

They have to do no such thing. They choose to do so, and some people choose to give them a pass for it once the cost reaches a certain level.

See how enjoyable pedantry is? You knew what he meant just like I knew what you meant.

I must thank you for giving me enough motivation to finally leave hacker news. I was listening to the new import this podcast, with ken reitz, wherein they were discussing the negativity of this community.

Now I'm going to try and go do something useful with my time, rather than get into obnoxious arguments.

I hope you're able to do the same as well.

> 97%+ of shareholders understand that Apple goes the extra mile in sustainability and agrees with that approach.

Meh. Over 50% of Apple stock is owned by institutional investors and mutual funds. I for one own Apple stock through index funds and just like every other company held by those funds I don't really give a shit about the specifics.

This is probably the most rigorously honest comment here :)

Pfft, the extra mile. Transporting your goods around the world on coal burning ships does not an environmentalist make.

The only large commercial ships left that I am aware of that are still coal burning, transport coal. Very few ports are equipped to refuel coal.

my mistake, I thought bunker fuel was a coal derivative

6 years ago 90,000 were running on bunker fuel

http://www.gizmag.com/shipping-pollution/11526/

370 million tonnes of it get burned every year and the price is rising

http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-11/ship-fuel-prices...

Given the cost of fuel is rising, these guys will hopefully benefit. http://www.skysails.info/english/skysails-marine/skysails-pr...

Is shipping really a significant part of the environmental impact of making electronics in China and selling them in the US? Shipping is way more efficient per mile than most other forms of transport, and IIUC much of the environmental impact of devices comes from disposing of them and the toxic chemicals they contain.

If they were really not profit centered then the making of electronics wouldn't be in China.

I don't think anyone's claiming Apple's a charity -- at least I'm not. I actually had an honest question about relative environmental impacts, but that's probably not what we're talking about here, so nevermind. "Trying to make money" is not the same as "trying to make money in every possible way, no matter the consequences."

Efficient per mile only in terms of cost of operation. Pollution wise, planes would be less.

The market is not very good at correcting for the future. Regulatory pressure would be the primary mechanism for change.

But again, if Apple wanted to be more regulated they wouldn't be manufacturing in China.

Planes? A bit of quick searching backs up what I thought -- ships are way less carbon-intensive than planes, though, to my surprise, less efficient than rail: http://carbonfund.org/how-we-calculate

And while I'm all for regulation, I'm basically pessimistic. Then again, overpopulation and nuclear escalation turned out less bad than I expected, so what do I know?

But explaining that could almost make it seem like helping the top line justifies environmental sustainability, when really they should do it regardless of whether it helps the top line.

Personally, I'm much more appreciate of the sentiment that not all things need to be exclusively driven by ROI. And at any rate, if you make it solely about the ROI then you open yourself up to evidence from conflicting "studies" and changing political landscapes.

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