How "Green" is the Amway/Quixtar Business?

• 1997 - Recipient of the Green World Award from the Rainforest Alliance
• 1992 - Recipient of the Transpolar Medal from the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization
• 1992 - Michigan Recycling Coalition Recycler of the Year
• 1992 - Recipient of the Honor Roll Company Award from the United States National Environmental Development Association
• 1991 - Recipient of the Conservation Achievement Award for Corporate Leadership from the National Wildlife Federation.
• 1989 - Recipient of the United Nations Environmental Programme Insignia Pin from the United Nations Environmental Programme Achievement Award

What nobody has taken into account is the total environmental impact of the inefficient  Amway/Quixtar business.  I think the Amway business is due for the first annual Amquix.info   "Green House Gas Promoter Award". 

What got me thinking about this was all the miles distributors drive just to get one more people into the Amway pyramid scheme.   In my page from a tax accountant the average distributor couple in the survey was driving 15,000 miles per year for their business.    All the distributors in the sutdy spend more on milage deductions than they earned from the busienss.  Bruce Anderson wrote me and said he could put 15,000 miles on his car in one month promoting the business.   Assuming that the average car got 25 miles per gallon, then 600 gallons of fuel and possibly 15 quarts of motor oil (3 oil changes) per year were consumed to promote the Amway business by these distributors. 

I searched the web to find out how much carbon dioxide one gallon of gasoline would generate.  I found a website with the conversion of 19.8 pounds of carbon dioxide per gallon of gasoline (6.2 lbs.) burned.   The 600 gallons of gasoline translate into about 6 tons of carbon dioxide per year at 25 miles per gallon.  At 15 miles per gallon the carbon dioxide emissions would be almost 10 tons!  As we are all told carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and it might be contributing global warming as seen in the melting of the ice caps and the glaciers in the Alps.

I found this interesting picture on the net about the status of the northern polar cap.   I also saw a receding glacier first hand 2 years about on a mtn. bike trip in the alps.  It was said that the glacier had receded by what is highlighted in the red area below in just 15 years. 

(Hinter Tux in Austria)

I did a little more searching and found another website showing the average emissions per capita American was 20 tons or 59 tons per household.  You might not think an additional 5-10 tons of carbon dioxide from an Amway distributor driving his car on for business is much, but when compared to the rest of the world average of  3.1 tons per person, it is quite large.  So the average gung-ho American Amway couple will generate the green house gases of 1 to 3 persons in the process of trying to expand their "business". 

Now, some people will argue that they do not have to drive to the store and they save gas and time.  That is an argument up to a point, but most everybody will still drive to the store to buy fresh produce and other items Amway/Quixtar does not sell. 

Amway/Quixtar distributors could also save a lot of energy and landfill space if they had electronic distribution of all their repetitive motivational tapes.    With the wide spread use of Ipods, .mp3 players and the Internet there is really no good reason in my mind why tapes and CDs are still distributed as hard copy.     Electronic downloads over the internet could replace all this waste with a click of a button.   Thank goodness, some groups have already seen the light. 

Then of course next we have the Amway corporation with their fleet of private jets.     I'm sure a dream of every Amway distributor is to take a ride in one of those babies.  Now our proud Amway couple here from Utah got picked up by the Amway Jet and were flown to Grand Rapids for a quick whirlwind tour of the headquarters.   Mapquest lists the distance at about 1700 miles.  Flying is more direct than driving so I will assume the flight miles are 1600.   Amway flew out to get them, so it was probably not a simple round trip but actually two round trips or 6,400 miles (about 10,000 km).   Now, I will admit I did not go to the effort to find the exact specs. on the Amway jets, so I will use the specs. for a Lear Jet 45 super light, which I happened to easily find.   The Lear jet has a cruising speed of 850 km/hr and a fuel consumption rate at cruising of 579 L/hr (155 gallons/hr).   Here the environmentally "conscience"(?) Amway corporation probably burned about 1,825 gallons of fuel to fly some a distributor couple in for quick visit of the corporate headquarters. 

No matter if it is truly wasteful, flying someone in on a private jet is a great publicity stunt, and it might help other distributors recruit others to the Amway Pyramid scheme.  The distributors in this photo came a bit further, 2,519 miles, so I estimate they burned 2,850 gallons of jet fuel (28 tons of carbon dioxide emissions assuming gasoline and Jet fuel are similar in carbon content) for their little trip to Ada, if the jet had to make two round trips.   

Maybe all these people giving Amway awards for the environment might take a closer look at how bad of an environmental partner the Amway business actually is.   At least for the environmental aspects relating to the climate and green house gases I think the business tops the list as a major sinner.  At least Amway is helping the rain forests by providing sufficient carbon dioxide for the rain forest to live on! J