Journalism Assignment [Press Conference]

TUESDAY, SEPT. 14, 2010

EBay’s Successful Business Model Boasts an Environmentally Friendly Byproduct

By GABRIELLE PEDRIANI

American University

WASHINGTON - “It’s not on the top of our minds” acknowledged Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, when speaking about the environmental impacts of the economy. She conceded that people are “much more worried about their jobs and their future” than the threats posed to our environment in today’s day and age.

That seemed to be the reoccurring theme during Tuesday’s conference, where representatives from eBay, the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, and Cooler Inc, a company that seeks to find economic solutions to global warming, met to discuss the role that eBay’s predominantly small business clientele could play in lessening the company’s carbon footprint.

EBay, the global Internet trading platform, boasts a host of environmentally friendly business practices, including buying and selling used products, reducing transportation and cutting back on packaging materials. The infrastructure impact of the company, in fact, is equivalent to “taking all the cars in…Kentucky off the road for a year”, according to founder and chairman of Cooler Inc, Michel Gelobter.

However, as eBay Inc. President and CEO John Donahoe himself confessed, “green is the secondary issue”, an issue which is proceeded first and foremost by the current economic state. The general consensus Tuesday was that until the environment truly becomes a top priority in U.S. society with tangible benefits, large-scale change will remain elusive.

Hope is not lost, however, as companies’ economic success and their ability to promote environmentally friendly business practices increasingly go hand in hand. “Companies that are looking far enough ahead will realize that … [clean energy] is where the economy is going,” stated Claussen.

“I don’t think people will forget about it,” she continued, with a twinge of skepticism. The three speakers seemed to agree upon one fact; in an individualistic society such as the U.S., real progress can only be achieved when the individual benefits in the process. Luckily for eBay, “sustainability is a byproduct” of their successful business – allowing the powerhouse a best of both worlds deal.