Greed and altruism

Sustainable development is a part of the moral lexicon requiring integration and evaluation. An example of this disputed moral terrain can be seen in our discussion about a corporation’s right to make a profit and developing societal concerns for sustainable development. Waldon’s (1989) solution is to develop basic institutions that can lexically order rights and assist in developing a concern for environmentally sensitive corporate activities that promote sustainable development. An overlapping consensus has the potential to provide a forum to assist in resolving differences such as those between green awareness and economic development. This may require the discontinuation of some corporate activity, or it may temper corporate excesses towards considerations of sustainability.

Given our present (unjust) institutional arrangements, some citizens are excluded from participating in the democratic process. A part of the reason is that present institutions rely on the market to achieve fairness in terms of efficiency. A market-based solution will not achieve the required change in societal consciousness to adequately respond to the environmental crisis. This is because self-interest does not promote the communal relationships that must be developed to achieve an environmentally aware society. Nevertheless, change through the middle-road does have the potential to transform and create ‘green’ social structures. The chapter has argued that society must explore ameliorative strategies before calling for the ‘destruction’ of basic institutions (Rawls, 1971, p. 243; cf. Rorty, 1991, p. 186).

In the foregoing analysis, justice that is guided by self-respect rather than market mechanisms must inform our basic institutions. Self-respect forms the basis of new green reporting practices which in turn represents a fundamental transformation in accounting. Self-respect prompts us to ask whether organisations have complied with the minimum standards of law and on what basis do we want to revise the law? (Gray & Collison, 1991, p. 25). One possibility, for example, would be to refine the compliance with statute approach to corporate social reporting championed by Gray et al. (1987, 1991). This would encompass, for example, developing a vision of the democratic society that recognises the systemic interdependencies between humans and the world they share.