Design & ethics — and regulation?

I’ve recently been perusing a site called TheDieLine.com, which bills itself as “The Leading Packaging Design Blog.” Enjoyable. Aside from nice images of packaging (an acquired taste, I guess), I thought this essay, “Packaging Goodness” was pretty interesting. It starts with a link-filled overview of prior thoughts by others on design and ethics, before coming around to questioning just how much power package designers really have in what is after all a client-driven business.

Here’s an excerpt:

If a company is just scraping by, and their competitors are not investing in sustainable packaging, then I can’t see some lone package designer digging in his or her heels and insisting that their client must go green or go bankrupt. To really do good, the sustainable packaging mandate must be fairly applied to all. A Walmart or a federal government (same thing?) are in a much better position (than graphic designers) to insist upon this. And if all manufacturers had to follow the same sustainable packaging rules, than theoretically those rules shouldn’t put any company at a competitive disadvantage.