I was thinking about what to write about this week and I was thinking oh we’re heading into the holiday season so that means a lot of purchasing, so naturally let’s talk about conscious consumerism. “Conscious consumption is an umbrella term that simply means engaging in the economy with more awareness of how your consumption impacts society at large. Shopping sustainably, with the intent to preserve the environment, is one way to consume more consciously.” The more I thought about it and the more I researched, the more I realized that conscious consumerism might just be another lie that corporations are peddling to us to get us to buy more stuff. I’ve previously thought about how conscious consumerism is a way for corporations to deflect blame and transfer their responsibility onto consumers, but I never really thought about how ineffective conscious consumerism is when you take in the big picture.
“Consumer spending contributes almost 70% of the total United States production. In 2019, that was $13.28 trillion.” Consuming is what our economy has been built on. There’s no way we’ll be able to actually make a difference in our conservation efforts or fight the climate crisis when the entire system was intentionally built on consuming more and more and more…and more, and more.
This holiday season, instead of buying your friend that ethically made scarf, let’s think about how we can really contribute to systemic change. For example, “globally, we’re projected to spend $9.32 billion in 2017 on green cleaning products. If we had directed even a third of that pot of money (the typical markup on green cleaning products) toward lobbying our governments to ban the toxic chemicals we’re so afraid of, we might have made a lot more progress by now.”
Alden Wicker from Quartz has some ideas for how we can change up our mindsets:
“Instead of buying expensive organic sheets, donate that money to organizations that are fighting to keep agricultural runoff out of our rivers.
Instead of driving to an organic apple orchard to pick your own fruit, use that time to volunteer for an organization that combats food deserts (and skip the fuel emissions, too).
Instead of buying a $200 air purifier, donate to politicians who support policies that keep our air and water clean.
Instead of signing a petition demanding that Subway remove one obscure chemical from its sandwich bread, call your local representatives to demand they overhaul the approval process for the estimated 80,000 untested chemicals in our products.
Instead of taking yourself out to dinner at a farm-to-table restaurant, you could take an interest in the Farm Bill and how it incentivizes unhealthy eating.”
To sum it up, if you have to buy, buy sustainable, but let’s not let it distract us from the bigger picture. Giving to organizations and investing in companies that are creating change will make way more of an impact than choosing to buy a sustainably made product. Speaking of small actions that make a big difference, are your investments sustainable yet?