Are We, the People of the Western World Ready to Redefine Our Identity?
What defines a person’s identity?
According to advertising and social norm, it’s often what brand of products we buy. But is it really sustainable to be this materialistic?
The documentary “The End of Ownership is an invigorating look at a potential future that can work better for all of us. Most valuably, it exposes a troubling current that runs through our modern culture: the things we own have a tendency to own us.” (Top Documentary Films)
If you haven’t seen it, I can really recommend it!
The problem with our way of living
Wouldn’t it be better to live in a society where companies operate by providing sustainable services that consumers want because of their quality rather than by producing and selling as many products as possible which have a limited lifespan in order to demand consumers to keep buying new products?
In our contemporary society, the majority of us buy products to satisfy our daily needs.
You want somewhere to store your food — you buy a refridgerator.
You need to wash your clothes — you buy a washing machine.
You want to travel — you buy a car (But hopefully a bike is enough)
You want to communicate — you buy a smartphone
When these things break, or the new updated version is released, we buy another product. This not only have a huge impact on first world countries’ ecological footprint, but also contribute to escalating inequities between the west and “the rest” of the world since our planet’s resources need to benefit everyone.
Every new product produced requires resources, gathered from the finite supplies of our planet. Every product is designed to meet a need and be appealing to consumers, but rarely to be repairable and reusable. Because of this, a vast amount of resources end up as trash every year.
But how can we change this? We consumers still want something that fulfil the convenience we’ve gotten used to
Let’s take a step back and think for a moment. What maters most is that something do solve our everyday-problems, not how it’s done.
Pay for services instead of products
When a company rethink how they provide solutions to their customers and switch to instead provide a solution as a service, several benefits will arise. When customers pay for a service, they don’t really care about how the details work —what matters is the result and the price. If the service-provider owns the equipment that runs the service, takes care of it’s maintenance and upgrades, they would want equipment that’s cost-effective, durable and upgradeable.
Making products that work like this would not only force us to spend our resources more cost-effectively and thereby result in a huge positive impact on our environment — it would also allow consumers to get more convenient solutions.
In theory, this model seems like a viable solution to our contemporary challenges regarding sustainability. Sooner or later, participants of our national and global economies will have to leave the old model of unsustainable consuption if we are to save our planet.
If consumers start favoring sustainable services over disposable products, companies will have to change
However, one question remains:
Are we consumers ready to challenge our identity and stop defining ourselves based on what we own?
