73
sustainable future. Had the study attempted to also consider how to measure social
impacts, or the third bottom line concerning “people,” it would have been almost
20 years ahead of its formal succinct articulation by the World Commission on
Environment and Development. Coca-Cola would have been an example of sustainable industrial development that works to “meet the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (Bruntland
1987). It is not useful to note that this private study did not consider one missing
formal element that would take a future UN-commissioned report to develop.
3
Given the growing acceptance of this triple-bottom-line approach by a greater proportion of society, and since the study was limited to a detailed evaluation of the
packaging and not the contents, it may actually help Coca-Cola’s long-term future
corporate image to finally make the details of this seminal document public. It is
important to note that the REPA focused only on packaging and distributions and
that the impacts of growing, harvesting, processing, and combining the raw ingredients into the elixir that has been key to Coke’s global dominance are excluded from
the study. Sharing a 50-year-old REPA does not risk divulging even a single ingredient making up the secret recipe of what is in the bottle.
4.4.3 The Record Reveals Clear Intentions
During his address to the Technology Assessment Board in hearings held by the US
Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, in June of (OTA 1976), Harry
Teasley was quite transparent about many of the study’s key details and conclusions
in comments and answers to follow-up questions posed by the largely sympathetic
and supportive board, staff, and advisory council members in attendance. Key parts
of the original conversation outline a familiar dilemma regarding environmental
degradation and humankind’s attempts to mitigate them at the source. Teasley also
frames technical conclusions from the 1969 REPA as well as any other net environmental impact studies and, even more generally, the broader use of data and information from technology assessment activities within a four point conceptual
framework:
The first [concept] deals with acute public health or environmental issues…activities, operations, or products that have the potential to cause acute public health
or environmental problems should be controlled, related, or prohibited…The
objective of this management philosophy, or this concept, is to prevent disasters.
The second concept deals with the short-to-medium-term use of the “commons” –
air, water, land, resources… When the aggregate use of the “commons” begins
3 The third triple-bottom-line assessment metric attempts to quantify good or ill effects of a system
on “people.” Just a few years after the REPA was concluded, the social would also emerge as a
central but general concept in the contemporaneous systems thinking, Limits to Growth, report
published by the Club of Rome (Meadows 1972).
4.4 Corporate Origins of Environmental LCA
sustainable future. Had the study attempted to also consider how to measure social
impacts, or the third bottom line concerning “people,” it would have been almost
20 years ahead of its formal succinct articulation by the World Commission on
Environment and Development. Coca-Cola would have been an example of sustainable industrial development that works to “meet the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (Bruntland
1987). It is not useful to note that this private study did not consider one missing
formal element that would take a future UN-commissioned report to develop.
3
Given the growing acceptance of this triple-bottom-line approach by a greater proportion of society, and since the study was limited to a detailed evaluation of the
packaging and not the contents, it may actually help Coca-Cola’s long-term future
corporate image to finally make the details of this seminal document public. It is
important to note that the REPA focused only on packaging and distributions and
that the impacts of growing, harvesting, processing, and combining the raw ingredients into the elixir that has been key to Coke’s global dominance are excluded from
the study. Sharing a 50-year-old REPA does not risk divulging even a single ingredient making up the secret recipe of what is in the bottle.
4.4.3 The Record Reveals Clear Intentions
During his address to the Technology Assessment Board in hearings held by the US
Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, in June of (OTA 1976), Harry
Teasley was quite transparent about many of the study’s key details and conclusions
in comments and answers to follow-up questions posed by the largely sympathetic
and supportive board, staff, and advisory council members in attendance. Key parts
of the original conversation outline a familiar dilemma regarding environmental
degradation and humankind’s attempts to mitigate them at the source. Teasley also
frames technical conclusions from the 1969 REPA as well as any other net environmental impact studies and, even more generally, the broader use of data and information from technology assessment activities within a four point conceptual
framework:
The first [concept] deals with acute public health or environmental issues…activities, operations, or products that have the potential to cause acute public health
or environmental problems should be controlled, related, or prohibited…The
objective of this management philosophy, or this concept, is to prevent disasters.
The second concept deals with the short-to-medium-term use of the “commons” –
air, water, land, resources… When the aggregate use of the “commons” begins
3 The third triple-bottom-line assessment metric attempts to quantify good or ill effects of a system
on “people.” Just a few years after the REPA was concluded, the social would also emerge as a
central but general concept in the contemporaneous systems thinking, Limits to Growth, report
published by the Club of Rome (Meadows 1972).
4.4 Corporate Origins of Environmental LCA