It is easy for the government to impose strict environmental rules on how businesses must be run, because the businesses, not the government, have to pay the cost of meeting those rules.
So it was refreshing recently when multiple Chattanooga-area business leaders and public officials pointed out during a forum on “green” initiatives the impracticality and even unpopularity of so many of those initiatives.
n Wejun Robinson, the general manager of Top Flight paper products company, based in Chattanooga, said companies often cannot justify the high cost of projects such as installing solar panels. Only with government subsidies will most businesses consider installing solar panels, he noted.
“You can’t do solar on your own,” he added.
n Guenther Scherelis, spokesman for Volkswagen Group of America, said consumers are not willing to face steeper taxes or higher prices for many products that are considered more environmentally friendly. He said that in his native Germany, it has taken “a lot of state intervention” to get the public to embrace green products and practices. In fact, he added, “without the government, in Germany it wouldn’t work.”