One of the biggest things that I learned from the nuances of doing business in Portugal is that it isn’t about just making money in Portugal — it is about much more than that. They are stewardesses of the planet. When we went to the cork farm the owner explains that for all of us in the world to live as a cooperative when need to stop talking from the planet as much as we do. An example he used was that he produces twice the number of calories with the things he plants versus in other parts of the world they use twice the number of calories to get 1 calorie of energy. Another example is whenever we went to the textile mill Impetus. Although Impetus is a large company, it still holds values congruent with the ones a small one has, such as the owner?s wife knowing every lineworker’s name, offering extensive benefits, and having all the staff participate in daily business activities. To me, the consensus of doing business in Portugal that is different than in the United States is that they aren?t just focused on profits; they are more people-oriented and they care about the livelihood of their workers and want to pay them a livable wage.
Since Portugal does have a decent minimum wage and Impetus does pay their workers a share of the company?s profits, they are well off to their American counterparts, and no wonder they are happy to work there. I do think though that although this might sound amazing on paper that is great that Portugal is amazingly sustainable shown there, they use every part of an olive whether the waste is gone to make fuel or wine is made into brandy or that cork oak trees are the most sustainable tree on the planet. This is far different than the US. One of the examples used by the cork manufacturer was that when planting an oak, you need to think long-term: You are planting a tree for your grandkids, you are planting for generational wealth. In the US we don?t think that long term we think in terms of short-term profits, and we need to appease shareholders’ interest instantly or the money will go elsewhere. However, there needs to be something done now and in the future to make sure we can start making sure we do things in the US more sustainable for the planet.