What's the significance?

Envirohuman impact. Here we have, again, a new word for an old concept. It's the very reason that humans care about the environment (despite not historically "taking" care of the environment so well). In essence, we care to some degree that damage to the environment could come back to hinder our own capabilities to live comfortably.

So what's the big deal about naming the concept -- taking this nearly ubiquitous "care" and labelling it?

Imagine if, when writing a business plan, prospectus, or pitching a new idea, campaign, or product, companies across the board added into the equation that produces their bottom lines the idea of the envirohuman impact of their latest projects?

Now, what if those companies had an applicable scale that took the positive or negative envirohuman aspects of the business they do, taking into consideration air and water pollution from production as well as waste from the packaging (related article from NY Times: "Incredible Shrinking Packages") and were given a number which would be figured into the bottom line of a given project?

This goes back to the idea that most companies will pollute as long as it is cheaper to do so and that unless there's a strong economic benefit for reducing their levels of pollution, companies will remain relatively slow to bring about innovations for improving efficiency related to positive or negative envirohuman impact.

Because pollution does have a cost to society, especially in healthcare costs to those who suffer from pollution- or environmentally-caused diseases, and global climate change has the potential to change life as we know it, those who pollute should have to bear the cost of their pollution, in order to give them an incentive to reduce their pollution as a matter of simple economics: it will become cheaper for the companies to reduce their pollution, because it will (hopefully) be another cost worth reducing.

Basically, a rating system that would yield a dollar cost for pollution is called for. Would-be investors would want to know about companies' envirohuman impact ratings just as they would want to know about other facets of their business profiles. A positive envirohuman impact rating would be another sign of a healthy, efficient business. In sum, it's not such a big deal to name this age-old concept, but to measure it, to give it a rating, to convert it to a cost, could stimulate the market to take over innovation of pollution-reducing methods.