The costs of these businesses’ negative impacts on the climate, human health, and the environment are ‘externalized’ – i.e. paid for by society and the natural world.
Governments also provide indirect or hidden subsidies to big businesses, including fossil fuel subsidies that artificially reduce the cost of long-distance transport, and investments in infrastructure such as centralized power plants and shipping terminals that disproportionately benefit large companies. The costs of these businesses’ negative impacts on the climate, human health, and the environment are ‘externalized’ – i.e. paid for by society and the natural world.