Economy of [Human] Scale

There was a recent opinion piece in the Star Tribune about waste and resources that used my industry as an examples. While I respect the author’s point with regards to making recycling rules simpler and more streamlined in order to decrease the amount of waste we throw into our nation’s landfills, I think there was essential failure of imagination about the way in which we produce and consume things.

Within the sustainability movement, there is an excessive focus on method; it seems the main critique of business and society at large is not the things we do, but rather the way in which we do them. In this version, a sustainable business is one that adheres practices that have been deemed so. What this ignores is a more substantial criticism about the structure of production. If we allow ourselves to imagine a world in which things are produced in a fundamentally different way, then we have to ask whether or not the very concept of Starbucks – with over 16,000 stores worldwide, proposing beverages with as much as 20 oz of milk as a single serving, and purchasing coffee in such large quantities – is a sustainable model.

In nature, each organism has its own natural limits, and ecosystems work best when things exist within a certain balance. This is not something that could be said of our current systems of production and consumption. We tend to think in “economies of scale”, but what this really means is producing more and more for cheaper and cheaper (which thus entices us to consume more and more).

Enough theory. What am I really talking about? Let’s take my café as a for instance. While Starbucks is pushing for regulations that make it easier for a large multi-national company (such as itself) to act sustainably, we have chosen to purchase our milk from a small-scale farm that uses returnable glass bottles. What we do is a impossibility for a company the size of Starbucks. When we buy from a local farmer we’re not only buying milk that tastes better (it does), but we’re making a statement about being from somewhere. Starbucks competitive advantage is exactly that it doesn’t come from anywhere; a Starbucks in Omaha is just like one in San Fransisco.  To accomplish this they need products that are part of the same system; they need milk that comes from anywhere, USA and is produced on such a scale.

I have no qualms about the way Starbucks does business (for a large corporation it does an impressive job), however, is supporting businesses of this size sustainable? Is our economic ecosystem truly balanced when we consider businesses like Starbucks “natural”?

Every business, like every individual consumer, its definition of happiness. Too often – without this question answered – business grows for the sake of growth and we consume because it exists; this is hardly a recipe for balance, as our world tells reflects back to us on a constant basis.

Starbucks is truly an admirable business for the way in which it conducts itself, but are we as consumers willing to be challenged on our habits? Instead of asking for compost-able paper cups, will we slow down and enjoy things in ceramic? Instead of demanding 20 oz or more, will we ask for better quality at 8 oz? And instead of accepting the distribution of goods through large corporate chains, will we ask for a relationship with those who provide it?