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Creative Capitalism Strikes Again
By Marc Tracy
Independent Street presents the story of two entrepreneurs who launched a Website, Tappening, initially and ostensibly for the public-service cause of drawing attention to the environmental downsides of purchasing and using disposable plastic water bottles. To fund the project, they offered 39,000 reusable plastic water bottles for sale. And they succeeded in selling those 39,000 water bottles. In two days. Then they sold 350,000 more, grossing over $6 million. And counting.
Though they have so far drove all of that revenue back into the project, controversy has erupted over the prospect of them making money over what seemed to be a not-for-profit sort of endeavor. They themselves have defended such a notion, in the face of criticism; and they've even hosted a poll on the site asking whether they're "Greedy Entrepreneurs," "Selfless Environmentalists," or "Both".
While, if we had to guess, we'd probably check-mark "both," the real question is: who cares?
The end result, after all, is the increased use of eco-friendly water bottles, and, assuming that is an end result you feel worthwhile (we know we do), should it really bother you if the people behind it are also profiting? (This is assuming there's no false advertising at work, which in this instance there wasn't: it appears that they genuinely believed their bottles would sell modestly, and planned only to recoup their costs, and were surprised as anyone when their idea took off.)
But the larger point is that this is creative capitalism at its best and, as we've argued, it may represent the future of both entrepreneurship and of philanthropy. And in fact, the real answer isn't "Who cares?", it's, "hopefully". We hope these entrepreneurs are greedy: the greedier they are, the more of their great eco-friendly water bottles they will sell. The whole point of creative capitalism is that it allies the private profit motive with the public good in a non-zero sum relationship, such that the energies behind both are accumulative rather than at odds.
Incidentally, we'd also point out that one can do a similar thing but come at it from the opposite direction. Tappening's founders set out to do good, and now may be in it for profit; but you can just as easily practice eco-preneurship if you are already in business for the money (what else is anyone in business for?) and decide that it might help your business if you are more green-friendly.
So bravo for Tappening! May they help save the environment, and may they do well by themselves in the process.
Comments (0)March 30, 2009 5:36 PM
