Are there that many industries where consumer choice would encourage companies to make those kinds of pro-humanity choices? I'd like to buy electronics that aren't manufactured in part by children but it isn't like companies advertise whether they do that or not. So outside of occasional investigative journalism or assuming that they (or one of their suppliers) probably do what choices am I left with?
They actually do, that's why some companies also engage in Greenwashing, which is the practise of pretending to be environmentally friendly when you are actually not.
Because the brand of these companies is so valuable, once exposed they actually take steps to fix issues. Perfection is enemy of the good though, but things are actually moving for the better when there is a trend to demand the better.
There's of course counter trends, like eat more meat burn more fuel, screw the foreigners etc. I bet you, if these become dominant, the same brand will be all over it. "For every phone you buy from us, we kill a baby seal and throw a battery in the ocean" could be the next campaign if the ant-environmentalism catches up.
Well guess what, a tax on ghg emissions will make both those that don’t care about environment and those that pretend to care about it, suffer economic consequences.
I agree this kind of consumerism moves the needle, however I'm not sure that this mechanism can be relied on at the scale required to help with problems like climate change. Millions of consumers in many countries would have to be convinced to do research/change their purchasing habits and potentially inconvenience themselves or even increase their cost of living, even to environmentally concious people I'd guess that's a hard sell
