Green Consumerism
Green consumerism creates a balance between the expectations of consumer
behaviour and businesses' profit motives - within the orbit of environmental
protection. It is increasingly calls upon to look at the entire life cycle of a consumer's
purchases - because a consumer does not just buys 'a' product, but also everything
that went into its production, and everything that will happen in the future as a
result of that product. We need to realize that all products have an environmental
impact, however small. The concept of green consumers also focusses on
businesses, and their survivability as they respond quickly to demands of consumers
for products and services that are also environmentally friendly.
A Quick Introduction to Green Consumerism
Green consumerism creates a balance between the expectations of consumer
behaviour and businesses' profit motives. Points to be noted:
• Markets don't wait for slow movers. Businesses that innovate and respond
quickly to consumer demands survive best.
• Everyone has a part to play, at various levels of administration, manufacture
and use.
• A consumer has to realize that he/she not just buys 'a' product, but
everything that went into its production, and everything that will happen in
the future as a result of that product.
• All products have an environmental impact, however small. The idea is to
reduce it to the minimum.
"A 'cradle-to-grave' approach
" ... even green products have "The greenest option: don't
should be used to understand
an environmental impact" buy!"
green products"
Key impacts of green products:
• Consumers have been asking for green products, ie there has been a clear
raise in demand for such products.
• Businesses have looked into the green process - generating corporate
environmental profiles, monitoring and evaluating green performance, and
improving corporate image as a result.
• Green products have also increased competition among businesses to
generate more environmentally friendly products.
• Ecolabelling networks that monitor and evaluate green products have been
developed in many countries. These networks have done life cycle analyses to
understand the impact of products.
• Governments have also taken several measures that have supported and
facilitated such moves by businesses.
"Life Choices: Green "The triple bottom line: "Consumer is a change agent
consumerism is not just what economically viable, and is proactive"
we buy, but also how we live" environmentally sound, and
socially responsible"
Key issues for the future include:
• Health: A sentary lifestyle combined with health impacts of environmental
pollution and emissions, use and abuse of pesticides, anti-biotics etc.
• Population and consumption: Population increases, aging populations,
consumption patterns - living beyond means, etc.
• Globalization: Transboundary effect and free trade have both advantages
(efficiency, profits, opportunities, demand) and disadvantages
(unemployment, footloose companies, weaker controls, unfair trade, small
scale loses out) etc.
• Energy: Every source of energy has an environmental impact. Energy
efficiency is not just technology, but also cutting back. There are enough cars
to create a six-lane traffic jam to the moon.
• Water: Water use is increasing at twice the rate of population increase. Much
can be done at the individual level.
• Chemicals: Use of pesticides and other hazardous chemicals. PCB?DDT has
been found in mother's milk too! Ozone depleting chemicals, hormone-
disrupting chemicals have long term effects on human health and well-being.
• Genetic engineering: Includes many ethical and moral issues, including
misinformation. Not that genetic engineering is bad - but the consumer
should be given the choice.
• Natural World: Considerable pressures put on the natural world due to
population increases and rise in consumption. 40% of all plant growth
consumed by humans! Somewhere, something should stop.
• Ethics: The treatment of other peoples. Issues of gender, children, animal
welfare. Ethics of cloning, fertility et al.
• Fair Trade: Nee to look into working conditions (child labour, low wages,
long hours, lack of safety, mass production v/s craft industries.
• Neighbourhoods: Development of a sense of community. Increase in
financial wealth, but also of quality of life. Measure "gross national
happiness"!!
• Childhood: Loss of 'childhood' due to societal pressures and expectations,
knowledge and skills, etc.
"Green consumerism involves
"If everyone in the world lived
actions from the government "20% of the population use
a lifestyle like Japan, then we
sector, the private sector and 80% of the resources"
would need three planets"
the civil society"
The Year 2000 - Creating a future we want:
• make intelligent life choices
• use people power for positive change
• act as well as think
• set clear priorities
• fight for the right to know
• understand the bigger picture
• respect the living world
• expect the unexpected
• happiness cannot be bought
• practice give-and-take
Source:
Presentation notes based on a talk given by Julia Hailes , co-author of the
1988 book "Green Consumer Guide", at the International Symposium on
Consumption and the Environment on 26 February, 1998 in Tokyo, Japan.
[Note: emphasis and images created by Hari Srinivas]
The Power of Green Consumers
Review of Vital Signs 2002
Well-informed consumers are emerging as a new force in the global struggle to
create an environmentally sustainable world, reports a new study by the Worldwatch
Institute, a Washington, DC-based environmental and social policy research
organization. Aided by labeling programs, standards, and an expanding group of
social and environmental certification organizations, the world's consumers are
'voting with their wallets' for products and services that promote sustainable
development.
'Some free market advocates claim that the market automatically gives people all
the choices they want and all the information they need,' says Michael Renner,
Worldwatch Senior Researcher and Project Director for Vital Signs 2002. 'But what
consumers are demonstrating is that they want more environmentally acceptable
choices than the market has been delivering, and more trustworthy information
about the social and environmental impact of the products they might buy.'
'Vital Signs 2002' produced with the support of the United Nations Environment
Programme (UNEP) and the W. Alton Jones Foundation - documents many instances
where consumers, often aided by information-brokering organizations, are seeking
out goods and services that promote sustainable development:
• The Mexico-based Forest Stewardship Council has certified over 25 million
hectares of commercial forest in 54 countries as meeting social and
environmental standards for sustainable forestry, more than double the area
in 1998 (p. 70).
• Worldwide, buyers of energy-saving compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) have
eliminated the need for nearly 40 medium-sized, coal-fired power plants (p.
46).
• At the seafood counter, consumers can now find rock lobster, cockles, hoki,
mackerel, herring, and salmon that carry the Marine Stewardship Council's
logo as having been harvested under environmentally responsible
management (pp. 124-125).
• Thai consumers have used information from an appliance-labeling program to
drive the market share of energy efficient, single-door refrigerators from 12
percent in 1996 to 96 percent in 1998 (p. 132).
• In 21 European countries, beachgoers follow the ratings of the European Blue
Flag campaign to find some 2,750 beaches and marinas with high
environmental standards and sanitary and safe facilities (pp. 124-125).
• Coffee drinkers in the US and Canada can ask for their coffee to be brewed
from beans carrying the Bird Friendly seal of approval from the Smithsonian
Migratory Bird Center. This program certifies that the beans meet standards
for shade farming and organic production (pp. 124-125).
'Changing consumption and production patterns will be high on the agenda of this
year's World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD)," says Klaus Töpfer,
Executive Director of UNEP. 'Consumers will not save the world by themselves, but
they are welcome allies in a struggle where we are going to need all the help we can
get."
Vital Signs 2002 highlights several sectors where consumer pressure could be pivotal
in getting industry and regulatory bodies to step up to the plate. The electronics
industry in 2001 produced 60 million transistors for every man, woman, and child on
Earth. California's Santa Clara County, the birthplace of the semiconductor industry,
now contains more toxic waste sites than any other county in the United States. In
1997, more than 2.9 million tons of e-waste ended up in US landfills, and by 2004,
tens of millions of cell phones and an estimated 315 million computers may be
headed for our dumps.
'We tend to think of the 'new economy' as being cleaner than the 'smokestack
economy,'' Renner says. 'But manufacturing semiconductors is chemical-intensive.
And the short life-span of these products is creating mountains of electronics waste,
poisoning groundwater supplies, and endangering human health. Cell phone and
computer users should be demanding that manufacturers take their products back,
and design them to be recycled instead of dumped.'
The cruise ship industry is another industry ripe for pressure from consumers. The
number of people taking a cruise vacation more than doubled between 1990 and
2000, to almost 10 million passengers a year. The industry's environmental record
has been dismal. Overall, the world's cruise ships discharge some 33 million tons of
raw sewage and garbage into the oceans each year. Cruise ship passengers could
use their vacation dollars to favor companies that meet strict environmental
standards.
Some examples of Green Consumerism
The Mexico-based Forest Stewardship Council has certified over 25 million
hectares of commercial forest in 54 countries as meeting social and environmental
standards for sustainable forestry, more than double the area in 1998.
Worldwide, buyers of energy-saving compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) have
eliminated the need for nearly 40 medium-sized, coal-fired power plants.
At the seafood counter, consumers can now find rock lobster, cockles, hoki,
mackerel, herring, and salmon that carry the Marine Stewardship Council's logo as
having been harvested under environmentally responsible management.
Thai consumers have used information from an appliance-labeling program to
drive the market share of energy efficient, single-door refrigerators from 12 percent
in 1996 to 96 percent in 1998.
In 21 European countries, beachgoers follow the ratings of the European Blue
Flag campaign to find some 2,750 beaches and marinas with high environmental
standards and sanitary and safe facilities.
Coffee drinkers in the US and Canada can ask for their coffee to be brewed from
beans carrying the Bird Friendly seal of approval from the Smithsonian Migratory
Bird Center. This program certifies that the beans meet standards for shade farming
and organic production.
New Economy, Not Clean Economy
In 2001, about 520 million people used the Internet, which encompassed 147
million host computers, almost double the number in 1999. And the number of
mobile telephone subscribers rose to almost 1 billion in 2001, nearly pulling even
with the number of fixed-line connections.
A single semiconductor plant may use between 500 and 1,000 different
chemicals, making the semiconductor industry one of the most chemically intensive
ever known.
A computer monitor contains 1.8 to 3.6 kilograms of lead, a heavy metal that
damages the nervous system and poisons blood cell development.
In some American businesses, one computer is used per user per year, fueling a
growing waste crisis. And at least 315 million computers in the United States are
predicted to become obsolete by 2004.
300?500 million metric tons of hazardous waste were generated worldwide each
year during the past decade, amounting roughly to 50-83 kilograms per person in
1999 alone.
Discarded cell phones are a growing contributor to electronic waste, as
consumers seek the latest technology and manufacturers introduce disposable
models.
The Thirst For Sugar
The United States, with less than 5 percent of world population, is the largest
carbonated soft drink consumer, accounting for one third of total soda consumption
in 1999. China, with about 20 percent of world's population, is the fourth largest
consumer of soda and is growing rapidly.
Soda consumption contributes to tooth decay, nutrient deficiencies, and caffeine
dependence. A recent study showed a direct correlation between consumption of
sugar-sweetened drinks and childhood obesity.
In 2000, the two largest soft drink corporations, the Coca-Cola Company and
PepsiCo. spent $4.6 billion worldwide on advertising, a significant portion of which
targeted children.
Consuming Pesticides
In the United States, the share of harvests lost to pests has increased from 30
percent in the early 1940s to 37 percent in the 1990s - despite a 10-fold increase in
pesticide use.
The US constitutes about 40 percent of the world market for household
pesticides, with annual sales exceeding $1 billion. China is the second largest market
with $580 million in sales.
The United Kingdom spends roughly $200 million each year to remove pesticides
from drinking water, equal to one quarter of what British farmers spend on pesticides
themselves each year.
Efficient Energy
Energy efficiency labeling programs can be found in 43 countries around the
globe, a sevenfold increase since 1980. If 20 percent of American consumers were
influenced to purchase one of the most efficient refrigerators available, the electricity
savings would eliminate the need for more than four large power plants.
Wind energy remains the world's fastest-growing energy source. Wind generating
capacity reached 24,800 megawatts in 2001, up 37 percent from 18,100 megawatts
in 2000.
Production of photovoltaic (solar) cells exceeded 390 megawatts in 2001,
marking the fourth straight year of growth at or above 30 percent.
Driving Farther
The European Automobile Manufacturers Association has offered a voluntary
commitment to increase auto fuel efficiency standards to 41 miles per gallon (5.7
liters per 100 kilometers) by 2008. In Japan, regulations will likely bring about an
improvement to about 35 miles per gallon (6.7 liters per 100 kilometers) for new
models by 2010.
Currently, the combined fuel economy of new passenger cars and light trucks in
the US stands at just 24.7 miles per gallon (9.5 liters per 100 kilometers), the
second-worst figure in 20 years.
Car sharing is emerging rapidly in Europe, North America and Asia. Each shared
car is estimated to eliminate four cars from the road.
A lane of light rail can move four to eight times more people per hour than a lane
of highway.
Boom and Bust
The largest generation of young people in human history (1.7 billion people aged
10-24) is now reaching reproductive age.
Half the population of Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Syria is under 25,
while over 60 percent of Pakistan and Afghanistan's populations fall into that
category.
Every day, 30,000 children under the age of 5 die of preventable causes.
Hard Lessons
More than a quarter of all children in South Asia and 40 percent of all children in
Africa did not have access to formal education in 1998.
Half of California's new schoolteachers in 2000 had either no credentials or were
inadequately prepared for the subjects they taught.
Many highly qualified teachers from developing countries are being recruited to
fill positions in US and European schools.
