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A final relationship we can explore is that between a company and the environment and the tension between profits and protection of resources. The Seussian parable of The Lorax is the obvious choice.19 The Once-ler, now hiding away in the desolate land of his creation, tells us of his entrepreneurial adventure producing Thneeds from Truffula Trees. Thneeds are multipurpose objects that symbolize all consumer desire in a single product, while Truffulas represent an essential link in the ecochain. As the Once-ler’s enterprise grew and environmental damage mounted, the various species went away, and the tree-hugging Lorax continuously failed to convince the Once-ler to alter his practice.

The story ends without much redemption for the Once-ler, the Once-ler defiantly carrying on business as the very last Truffula falls. The Once-ler’s business is gone because the material resources are depleted, and the environment lies polluted and barren. Now the Once-ler, a recluse in his dilapidated buildings, sells his story for fifteen cents, a nail, and a great-great-great-grandfather snail’s shell. The only glimmer of hope is the last Truffula Seed that the Once-ler passes on to the boy so that he can grow back the forest. The Once-ler warns, “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not” (Lorax). Even here the Once-ler does not work to fix his own mess but passes on the responsibility to the young boy, presumably symbolic of the future generations who will bear the burden of our present environmental negligence.

So does a business have a special obligation toward the environment? Well, first, is the environment the kind of thing one can have an obligation toward? One might argue so, but it is perhaps easier to defend the claim that one has an obligation toward some beings that depend on the environment. If a tree doesn’t feel pain, chopping it down might not violate the tree in any morally interesting way. On the contrary, if the last Bar-ba-loot family needed its shade and fruits, then perhaps I owe it to them not to chop the tree down. Of course, those most reluctant to admit that there is intrinsic value in nature will include animals as lacking intrinsic value. Think of the view that pets are really just property. So, we might only owe it to human beings (or at least similar kinds of beings) not to chop down the tree, since some human beings may derive some good from the existence of Bar-ba-loots. In fact, we find a spectrum of views regarding moral obligations to nonhuman nature. On the one side, some will see an inherent worth in living things, and perhaps even in special nonliving features of nature.20 In the middle, we see varying degrees of inclusion based on morally relevant properties, like being able to feel pain or being rational. On the other end, we find those who see only instrumental value in things and beings other than moral persons like humans.

While these differences are important in determining how one will act with regard to environmental dilemmas, we can simply allow that having an obligation toward the environment might be shorthand for at least having obligations to respect the environment for the sake of other persons. This allows us to postpone that larger philosophical debate for the moment. Now we can easily say that humans do have some obligation toward the environment and can ask whether businesses are like us in this respect.

One scholar, Norman Bowie, argues that businesses don’t have any special responsibility to the environment, only to uphold the law. Businesses are meeting consumer preferences, so environmentalists should only expect businesses to become greener if consumers desire greener products. Bowie informs us that “[b]usiness will respond to the market. It is the consuming public that has the obligation to make the trade-off between cost and environmental integrity.”21 This echoes the Once-ler’s declaration that it’s only someone else (besides those in business) caring an awful lot that can save the environment. While