[HCoop-Discuss] EnvironmentalPolicy

[Graham Freeman]

> I think it would be
> easier because the amount each person had to pay would begin to
> approach zero.


$0.00 per member for the first year is in fact zero.

$0.05 (or less) per month per member in subsequent years is awfully  
close to zero.

If you try it for a year and it sucks, then you don't even need to  
spend that $0.05/mo/member in the second year.  Bottom line: there's  
no financial risk and a potentially significant reward.

As has been pointed out already, the payback would be achieved in  
purely direct economic terms if only one or two new members join as a  
result of HCoop bragging about how it did the right thing.  As we've  
seen in the US from the sudden surge in 'green' marketing over the  
last few years, people do indeed buy green.  Even Sun Microsystems is  
playing the green card in their marketing.  So, if you consider this  
a marketing expense, then it's hard to do much better than to engage  
in an effective marketing campaign at a two-year cost of less than  
0.5% of revenues.

How much closer to zero would it need to be in order for this  
fallacious economic argument to go away?   If there's a policy  
discussion to be had, fine, but arguing about small quantities of  
pennies is really silly.

Graham Freeman
Cernio Technology Cooperative
www.cernio.com
graham.freeman at cernio.com