Externalized costs, also known as negative externalities, are social and environmental impacts that businesses offload to third parties, typically those with no influence over such developments, to maximize their profits. The discussion of externalities links especially to the acute awareness that the social and environmental costs of goods consumed in the Global North are largely outsourced to the countries of the Global South. These countries often provide cheap labor and generally still lack strict environmental standards for production, disposal of industrial waste or sufficient protection of workers’ rights and their health and safety. This was sadly highlighted by the collapse of the Rana Plaza building, Bangladesh, in April 2013 in which 1,134 workers who produced clothing for international high street brands were killed, and many more left with life-long debilitating injuries.
EXTERNALIZED COSTS
