"Not to say that corporations are perfect today, but even grand corporations like Dupont have made immense progress in translating some of their past environmentally damaging practices into new profit opportunities"
About this Quote
There is a wink buried in Strong's politeness: "Not to say that corporations are perfect today" is a throat-clear meant to disarm, a ritual nod to critics before he pivots to what he actually wants to normalize - the idea that environmental damage is best "solved" when it becomes a revenue stream.
The sentence is structured like a concession wrapped around a sales pitch. "Even grand corporations like Dupont" invokes a company with an especially heavy environmental reputation as a proof point: if a chemical giant can pivot, the logic goes, anyone can. It's reputational judo. By choosing Dupont, Strong isn't praising innocence; he's praising adaptability, the capacity to metabolize scandal into strategy.
The subtext is classic market-environmentalism from a man steeped in boardrooms and global conferences: regulation and moral pressure matter, but the real engine of change is profit. "Translating" is doing quiet work here. It turns past harm into a kind of raw material that can be reformatted - not necessarily repaired, not necessarily atoned for - into "new profit opportunities". Accountability is reframed as innovation. The future isn't pictured as less corporate; it's pictured as better-aligned corporate.
Context matters: Strong was a central figure in modern international environmental governance (Stockholm, Rio), operating in an era when "sustainability" was being engineered into a language business would accept. The intent isn't to absolve companies; it's to recruit them. The risk, which the quote also inadvertently reveals, is that ecological protection becomes credible only when it pencils out - and the parts of nature that don't monetize cleanly get left behind.
The sentence is structured like a concession wrapped around a sales pitch. "Even grand corporations like Dupont" invokes a company with an especially heavy environmental reputation as a proof point: if a chemical giant can pivot, the logic goes, anyone can. It's reputational judo. By choosing Dupont, Strong isn't praising innocence; he's praising adaptability, the capacity to metabolize scandal into strategy.
The subtext is classic market-environmentalism from a man steeped in boardrooms and global conferences: regulation and moral pressure matter, but the real engine of change is profit. "Translating" is doing quiet work here. It turns past harm into a kind of raw material that can be reformatted - not necessarily repaired, not necessarily atoned for - into "new profit opportunities". Accountability is reframed as innovation. The future isn't pictured as less corporate; it's pictured as better-aligned corporate.
Context matters: Strong was a central figure in modern international environmental governance (Stockholm, Rio), operating in an era when "sustainability" was being engineered into a language business would accept. The intent isn't to absolve companies; it's to recruit them. The risk, which the quote also inadvertently reveals, is that ecological protection becomes credible only when it pencils out - and the parts of nature that don't monetize cleanly get left behind.
Quote Details
| Topic | Business |
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