Thursday 29 January 2009

Strategy

How are we going to change the world?
The first thing to do is to see if we can change something.
Do you remember there was a massive march in London a few weeks ago? What was it all about? I can't remember. Did it have any effect? Probably not.
A lot of things in the UK, at least as reported by the press, seem like the work of comedians. Why is this? Surely it makes sense for politicians to do "the right" things. But why does it appear they are doing the "wrong" thing? There must be more behind it, maybe an ulterior motive. A politician only the other day suggested that men should have the right to 12 months paternity leave to be on an equal footing to a woman's right to maternity leave. Presumably this was just to get his name in the headlines so we knew who he was. He is, in fact leader of one of the 3 major political parties in the UK. I suspect not many people know who he is. Maybe a few more know now.
So what should we do.
The other day I walked into a small shop to buy a packet of cigarettes. Coming out of the shop I undid the wrapper and looked for somewhere it could be disposed. I could have walked across the forecourt of a garage to a waste bin at the pumps but that could be dangerous or disruptive even to me let alone a senior citizen. The road was covered in litter but this made me more determined to dispose of the litter responsibly. I found a litter bin about 100 yds from the shop. How many people would have bothered? Can you imagine a youngster doing this?
OK, you may say, who cares? Exactly. Let's say we reduce the rubbish at this parade of shops, the shops themeselves are encouraged by this to sharpen up their image, more customers stop and shop, the businesses improve, the owners are motivated to offer better products, shoppers can get better quality fodd etc. from these local shops rather than the out of town supermarkets. The suppliers feel less threatened by these supermarkets, knowing they have other outlets for their produce.
Maybe it is this sort of small change and thus pressure on the status quo that could change the world for the better. After all the large supermarkets work on high voulume and relatively low margin so pressure on their volumes can have a great effect.
Not that I want to bash supermarkets. But we cannot just let them have a free reign, otherwise we will be completely at their mercy. Probably sounds a bit dramatic and that's not my intention. As I say the idea is not to spoil one thing and replace it by another. But imagine if you had some sort of effective persuasion this could and should be used for the benefit of all. Take for example the supermarket packaging. This packaging has got more and more invasive. It is not for our benefit but for the benefit of the supermarket to aid transportation of it's products. But who has been made responsible to dispose of all this packaging? And I suspect, shortly, to pay for it's disposal. How does that work? We are paying for the supermarkets to pack their product so that it can be purchaesd cheaper form further and further afar (with no extra nutritional or other value, in fact probably less) and also "paying" to dispose of it for them. On the other side of the coin I hear that one particular major supermarket does endeavour to source local produce when available. OK so that's great to be able to buy local Granny Smiths, but they are still promoting non-season produce such as flowers from Africa. Not a good example but you know what I mean. Can't we do without strawberries in the winter?

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