Forget Black Friday; enter the era of Green Friday
The anti-consumerism movement is growing.
Shop till you drop: the Black Friday craze is in full throttle. However, people and companies are increasingly questioning the effects of the one-day buying frenzy on businesses and the planet. Is green the new black?
Currently, the busiest shopping day of the year, Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving. People from the U.S. traditionally kick off the holiday season by going shopping and buying Christmas gifts. To tap into this, retailers started offering huge discounts and bulk deals, which drew even more consumers to physical and online stores. In the last few years, the phenomenon has also caught wind in Europe, Australia, and Asia.
Not profitable for the planet
How profitable it may be for retailers, Black Friday and Cyber Monday, its online equivalent, are not very profitable for our planet. Free shipping adds to CO2 emissions, while more plastic packaging and older (sometimes perfectly useful) unwanted items end up in landfills. Fashion brands are particularly popular and notorious on Black Friday, offering discounts up to 80%(!). If you didn’t know it yet, the clothing industry is one of the most polluting industries worldwide.
Simply put, the day results in people to switch off their rational buying filters and replace them with a case of temporary insanity. Then, last year a new concept started taking off: Green Friday.
Anti-consumerism and Green Friday
Over the last few years, the movement of anti-consumerism has become more popular as we become more aware of climate change and its effects on our direct environment—a positive result of the activities of, for example, Extinction Rebellion and climate activists.
Some movements dubbed the day after Black Friday Buy Nothing Day or even Small Business Day to support the local economy instead of soulless retailers. The state of Colorado calls it #FreshAirFriday, offering free admission to all 42 of its parks to get people to change their mindset. And have you ever heard of Giving Tuesday? This concept was brought to life to turn the holiday spirit away from consumerism and towards philanthropy.
All these movements are a sign that people want to see change. What if we use Black Friday to think about the impact our purchases have on the world and how we can take action to help the planet and those around us instead? Let’s go green.
An essential step in changing our mindset is to realize how our consumer habits can impact the environment on the most popular shopping day of the year. Here are three points to take into account when you get tempted by Black Friday deals.
How you buy
According to the 2019 Deloitte Holiday Retail Survey, not only the number of purchases will increase this year, but half of them will also be bought online this holiday season. This will impact the environment significantly. A same-day shipping policy, such as Amazon Prime, leaves a larger carbon footprint than buying in-store due to the use of faster but more polluting transport like diesel trucks.
To reduce some of this carbon impact, some companies have started purchasing carbon offsets. Carbon offsetting is a way to neutralize the emissions that the company produces but can’t reduce. It aims to fight global climate change as well as support local communities. In many situations, this could mean, for example, funding projects that plant trees, setting up renewable energy plants, funding research for the improvement of health issues, or contributing positively to the development of impoverished communities.
What you buy
Consider the item you want to buy before you’ve even bought it. How is it made? What will happen once you are done with it, and you’re ready to dispose of it? Let’s explore three of the most bought items during Black Friday and the holiday season:
- Fast fashion
Fast fashion focuses on speed, volume, and low costs to rapidly deliver new collections to the stores and make money quickly.
Did you know it takes fashion retailer Zara only about 15 days to design, produce, deliver and stock an item in store? Read more at Forbes.com.
The pressure on the environment increases simultaneously with the pressure to reduce costs and the time it takes to get a product from design to shop floor, meaning environmental corners are more likely to be cut. Criticisms of fast fashion include the exploitation of workers, the use of toxic chemicals, and increasing textile waste levels. Plus, the cheap materials used in fast fashion production often contain microplastics, eventually polluting our waterways and oceans.
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation estimated that a truckload of clothing is wasted every second. For example, H&M currently has a stock of unsold clothing worth $4 billion. What happens to these clothes? In the worst-case scenario, they end up burned or in landfills, contributing more to emissions and waste problems.
- Electronics
Some of the most commonly bought goods during Black Friday and Cyber Monday are new phones, tablets, cameras, laptops, and other home electronics. All these products will eventually turn into e-waste. Only about 20% of this waste will be recycled, the other 80% possibly ending up in landfills with the potential to leak toxins such as mercury and lead into the soil, water, and even air. This poses a massive health threat to surrounding communities, especially to children, of which many are marginalized and have been lobbying for better environmental policies for years.
- Plastic
You can’t avoid it. Plastic is everywhere, from plastic products such as toys to plastic wrapped around our food in the supermarkets. One of the most common ways to use plastic is, you guessed it, to package products, as the online shopping boom is in full speed. Recycling plastic is not sustainable anymore because we can’t keep up with the amount of plastic being thrown away by consumers, resulting in only 9% of all plastics being recycled. Much unrecycled plastic ends up in the oceans, where it smothers corals and poisons marine life.
Reducing your impact
Current consumer culture encourages waste. However, people and businesses can take steps to cut back on how much their shopping habits might negatively affect the environment. This includes buying local, buying only what you need, or from (proven) sustainable sources, and spending your cash on experiences instead of stuff.
As a business, this is the time to lead the way and show consumers, peers, and governments that it doesn’t have to be this way. That Black Friday isn’t a sustainable way financially and environmentally to do business. Great business leaders realize that they are operating in a world where everything you do will be communicated worldwide in a matter of seconds.
If we ask 100 people how we can save the planet, we’ll get many the same answers: stop flying or become vegan. However, not many people realize that stop buying more stuff is number one on the list. Easy as that. Just buy nothing.
Enter the era of Green Friday
It will take a long time to change consumerism as we know it. But the increasing popularity of Green Friday is a powerful, positive way of pushing back on materialism. It has grown significantly in just the last few years — here’s to hoping it turns into a full-fledged worldwide holiday.
So if you don’t have any plans this Friday, considering joining a forest- or beach cleanup event, funding a cause you care for, and spending time with your family. Good for you, your wallet, and our planet.
Spend your money on making an impact, instead of stuff. Proof of Impact unites people that fund impact with organizations that create impact. Stay tuned for updates on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.
