Transcripts

Tim Sanders:
People sense urgency right now about local communities and the environment and they're using their money to make a difference. They want to do business with the companies that are responsible and help the world.

Tim Sanders, author of the book Saving the World at Work…

And as a professional researcher, I've got to tell you we've seen this before - we saw it in the 70's when Americans said, "We're willing to pay more for Japanese products because they work better." And Americans had to lose two million jobs before we realized that the goose was cooked and that's going on here too today - so it's a very broad-based trend. And every kid today (I call it the Facebook generation) they're doing more research on the company they're thinking of working for and the biggest question they have is, " Am I working at a company that makes a difference?" And this is going to determine the winners or losers over the next ten years in business.

Changing the way products are packaged is a good example of how some companies are becoming more responsible.

Software companies like Microsoft are beginning to re-imagine the idea that software is a service - it's not on discs, it doesn't come in big boxes. Wal-Mart has declared as of 2005 you will lose our business unless you shrink packaging by thirty percent. And by the way, less packaging costs you less money - to make it, to ship it and for the consumer to buy it. So that's going on with sixty thousand companies today, getting rid of almost all packaging.

At somethingyoushouldknow.net I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.