The Conscious Consumer
What is a Conscious Consumer?
A conscious consumer is a person who uses their purchasing power to influence positive change. Organisations can also be conscious consumers. For example, a coffee shop may decide to use only Fair Trade coffee, because they want ensure the supply chain is fair and equitable.
Conscious consumers consider more than just the best deal when buying goods and services. They also think about the social, environmental and sustainability factors associated with a product and how their purchase can bring about improvement, or at worst, minimise harm. Most conscious consumers will accept that making the right choice sometimes requires sacrifice. They will be prepared to pay a higher price or accept fewer features for a sustainably produced item or service.
Why be a Conscious Consumer?
Most governments, corporations and conspicuous consumers (e.g. the nominally one percent of the world population that holds half the world’s wealth) are incredibly slow to accept their responsibilities regarding climate change, sustainability and equity. We, as responsible citizens therefore need to exert whatever influence we have before Earth reaches a state of climate, ecological and societal collapse.
The writing is already on the wall in this regard.
- The latest indications are that the global average climate may have already warmed by more than 1.5°C since pre-industrial times.
- Species are currently going extinct at a rate many hundreds of times faster than what is considered by scientists to be the normal background rate attributable to natural forces and evolution. This extinction is primarily being driven by human over-exploitation of the planet’s resources.
- The collapse of societies and resultant migration crises is already happening in the Americas, Africa and Europe, largely due to exploitation of resources and people and the failure of life-sustaining systems like food and water supply due to changing climate in developing countries.
Individually, our choices may be of minuscule consequence, but collectively we can be powerful. No matter how non-materialistic (or just plain poor) we may be, we all consume stuff; the goods and services that we need to at least survive, if not thrive.
The current system that seems to prevail globally does not lead to an equitable situation for the majority of Earth’s citizens. Nor does it lead to a good outcome for the bulk of the planet’s living species.
The rich and powerful get rich and powerful by owning and controlling the flow of the services and commodities we all need in a system that ensures the flow of wealth is always upward to that one-percent at the peak of the wealth pyramid. Our political and economic systems are “owned” by the same rich and powerful blocs who strive to ensure that the status quo persists, seemingly regardless of the effects on our ecosystems and the rest of the population. Only just enough of that wealth flows downwards to keep (most of) the 99 percent alive, pacified, working and consuming.
One way we can influence change is by being selective about how we invest our time, i.e. how and where we work. By only working for enterprises that are of net benefit, we are working for the greater good. However, this is not always an option and the further down we are in the global wealth pyramid, the fewer our options are until, at the bottom of the pyramid we may be virtual, or in fact actual, slaves with no options at all. But this is not what conscious consumerism is and is grist for a whole other story.
As conscious consumers we operate on the other side of the coin, exercising influence through our choices when it comes to purchasing the goods and services we need (or want) in the course of our daily lives. Being a conscious consumer means weighing up the positive and negative implications of our choices to consume. This is not always as simple as it sounds because of the complex relationships between the many financial, social, environmental, ethical and political factors involved in the supply chain of the various goods and services that we generally take for granted.
Future articles will discuss what conscious consumers could consider, and why, to help our world become a better place.
Updated 13 Feb, 2024 — grammatical changes only.
