Transparency
Cost externalization is the practice of a company maximizing profits by passing off indirect costs, and negative effects, to a third party. You don't hear much about it, and you may not even know it's happening, but it occurs every day. $0.99 drugstore fingernail clippers and other ridiculously cheap manicure products are examples.
Because of cost externalization, $0.99 is not the actual cost of those clippers. Consider that somewhere, raw material is extracted and processed to steel in factories, which often release filthy exhaust and waste water into the environment. The steel is then sent to other factories to be manufactured into thousands of clippers by children, earning pennies a day. These kids are not the end-user of the clippers they make, but they pay too: with their health, childhood, and often limbs, eyes and lungs. The clippers are then packed and shipped overseas and placed for sale. Now, consider how long those $0.99 clippers will continue to work well for you, if they even work at all. If you take the time to consider it, the actual cost is much higher. YOU aren’t paying that price. The store you bought them from or the manufacturer producing them isn’t paying that price either; yet someone in the world IS paying. This is cost externalization.
We choose to avoid cost externalization and be as honest and transparent as possible in our manufacturing and raw material sourcing. This is why our tools cost a little bit more than others. No costs in creating our tools are externalized. Cost externalization is the practice of a company maximizing profits by passing off indirect costs, and negative effects, to a third party. You don't hear much about it, and you may not even know it's happening, but it occurs every day. $0.99 drugstore fingernail clippers and other ridiculously cheap manicure products are examples.
Because of cost externalization, $0.99 is not the actual cost of those clippers. Consider that somewhere, raw material is extracted and processed to steel in factories, which often release filthy exhaust and waste water into the environment. The steel is then sent to other factories to be manufactured into thousands of clippers by children, earning pennies a day. These kids are not the end-user of the clippers they make, but they pay too: with their health, childhood, and often limbs, eyes and lungs. The clippers are then packed and shipped overseas and placed for sale. Now, consider how long those $0.99 clippers will continue to work well for you, if they even work at all. If you take the time to consider it, the actual cost is much higher. YOU aren’t paying that price. The store you bought them from or the manufacturer producing them isn’t paying that price either; yet someone in the world IS paying. This is cost externalization.
We choose to avoid cost externalization and be as honest and transparent as possible in our manufacturing and raw material sourcing. This is why our tools cost a little bit more than others. No costs in creating our tools are externalized. Cost externalization is the practice of a company maximizing profits by passing off indirect costs, and negative effects, to a third party. You don't hear much about it, and you may not even know it's happening, but it occurs every day. $0.99 drugstore fingernail clippers and other ridiculously cheap manicure products are examples.
