Conscious Consumerism: Is it the best option?

“Green”, “Moral act”, and “vote with your dollar.” These phrases promote the concept of conscious consumerism and persuade consumers to follow the righteous way of consumption for global working and environmental conditions. The term “conscious consumerism” refers to the buying practices driven by a commitment to making purchasing decisions that have a positive impact on various global conditions. While many advocates of conscious consumerism emphasize the possible long-term effect that seems to be ideal, several questions remain on the validity and efficiency of practice compared to its substitutes. Regardless of the fact that practice may cause “big change” in the future, its direct effect is mere. Thus, while some say that conscious consumerism is present and future which will effectively improve global conditions, I argue that the practice of conscious consumerism should only be the starting point because compared to its mere impact, the practice poses an excessive economic burden on people, in which undermines the original intention of the practice and is ineffective compared to the spendings made by the consumers.

Indeed, some positive elements exist for conscious consumerism. Conscious consumerism pressures both consumers and companies to follow the ‘consuming trend’ and ‘civic duty’ that runs towards improving global conditions. Since the start of the conscious consumerism trend, consumers’ mindset has improved following the consuming trend as well. Laura K. Wise, in her article “The Evolution of the Conscious Consumer”, asserts that “The modern shopper’s sense of civic duty has evolved to be less about “saving America” and more about mindful consumption that’s good for communities and good for our planet,” (Wise 2021). In this quote, Wise explains that In such a time where climate change and inadequate working conditions emerged as rising topics, now consumers focus more on the planet Earth as a whole rather than thinking about buying products of their own countries. Moreover, while consumers have the tendency to follow the consuming trend, other consumers also buy the ‘sustainable product’, making a positive cycle between conscious consumerism, consumers, and companies. Thus, consumers’ civic duty is an important factor to consider when evaluating the practice of conscious consumerism, as gatherings of civic duty of an individual make consumer’s money to become a voting paper for improvement of global conditions.

Positive elements of conscious consumerism, as depicted in the previous paragraph, enable consumers to use their money as voting papers to demonstrate individuals’ beliefs. Utilizing money as votes for expressing one’s opinion, in fact, consequently has positive effects in long term. Considering sales of organic food, author Jennifer Nguyen reveals in her article “Conscious Consumerism: What It is, How It Can Affect Change & 10 Ways You Can Be a Conscious Consumer Yourself,” “Organic farming was a niche industry with $3.6 billion in sales in 1997 … By 2016, organic food sales had boomed to $43.3 billion, and further up to $50 billion in 2019,” (Nguyen 2020). This fact surely reveals the potential of conscious consumerism which is able to affect companies and industries in a positive way in terms of global environmental and working conditions. With conscious consumerism, the positive cycle in the market becomes activated in a way towards improving global conditions. However, the ideal positive cycle which seems to be perfectly structured often has a certain kind of dangerousness to consider. Even in this positive cycle, people having to spend an increased amount of spending on sustainable products causes one question to think about: Do economic burdens of consumers help in proportion to that extent?

Unfortunately, the economic burdens of consumers do not help in proportion to their spending, which is the downside of the conscious consumerism practice. This is because with conscious consumerism becoming the consuming trend in the market, the companies now manipulate the products with greenwashing and excessively expensive price tags. To point out an essential point regarding economic burdens, shopping with conscious consumerism is expensive compared to its mere effect. For example, fair trade products, a type of product to buy as a conscious consumer, the price of the product is overly expensive even with consideration of reflecting fair trade. Moreover, according to the author Fernando Morales-de la Cruz, the “economic impact of Fairtrade International, the largest certification organization, works out at less than US$0.04 per person per day,” which is an “insignificant amount (to) eradicate poverty,” (Cruz 2017). Moreover, Wicker reveals the statistics that “2012 study compared footprints of “green” consumers who try to make eco-friendly choices to the footprints of regular consumers. And they found no meaningful difference between the two,” (Wicker 2017). Thus, compared to a few dollars people spend more for fair trade coffee and other products for conscious consumers, its effect is not enough for improvement of labor and economic condition of workers in foreign countries. Thus, companies use fair trade as a marketing tool and they are actual ones who benefit the most from conscious consumerism.

In addition, the self-proclaimed ‘sustainable’ products could be greenwashed, which may further not even help global conditions overall, making the high spending of consumers meaningless. The term ‘greenwashing’ refers to dishonest marketing about a product’s environmental impact. These types of greenwashing and excessive pricing made conscious consumerism ineffective and elitist culture. Alden Wicker, in the article “Conscious consumerism is a lie. Here’s a better way to help save the world” asserts “Making series of small, ethical purchasing decisions while ignoring the structural incentives for companies’ unsustainable business models won’t change the world as quickly as we want. It just makes us feel better about ourselves.” and that “The sustainability movement has been charged with being elitist… You need a fair amount of disposable income to afford ethical and sustainable consumption.” (Wicker 2017) Here, Wicker indicates currently, conscious consumerism is becoming to be just a marketing tool for industries. With people having a tendency to have moral superiority compared to others, companies take advantage of the tendency of consumers and either greenwash the products or put excessive prices on the self-proclaimed ‘sustainable’ products. As consumers buy these products, it results in an economic burden. Therefore, conscious consumerism is becoming a kine of ‘Moral luxury’, luxury products to buy for one’s moral superiority, which is far from being efficient in proportion to consumer’s additional spending. This phenomenon obviously undermines the original purpose of the practice. Rather than voting with their money, consumers are now trying to buy morality with their spending. Thus, to avoid these side effects, conscious consumerism should just be a starting point, but not the center of improving global conditions.

Then what should be the central practice for the improvement of working and environmental global conditions? People may think that they are using money as voting papers for sustainability and humane working conditions, but in reality, consumer culture makes it impossible for us to make a “sustainable” choice. In fact, for real sustainability, people should reduce their consumption and practice minimalism. Consumption itself causes negative effects on global conditions in terms of environmental conditions and for real sustainability, people should change and reduce their whole consumption culture. However, people are now used to consumer culture, so reducing consumption affects daily lives. Thus, it is too late to change global conditions by spending money for one’s own moral satisfaction. Thus, rather than making a choice for this meaningless moral superiority, we should put our efforts, time, and money into something ‘real’ important when making choices for global conditions. Writer and activist Jennifer Nini asserts that conscious consumers “pretend that our individual ‘eco’ actions will actually change an unfair and unjust economic (and political) system,” even though in fact, actual political actions for “changing the destructive nature of the man-made systems that govern it,” (Nini 2019) are needed for improvement of global conditions. Thus, instead of conscious consumerism, there exist organizations, activists, and politicians that show instant efforts and actions for change in global conditions. Thus, instead of spending one’s wealth to wait for companies to change their products, investing for organizations and activists who make an instant change for the nature of the current system which is destroying environments and worsening labor conditions, can be considered more efficient and effective. For example, fund-raising for recovery of environment or improvement of labor conditions in certain country or industry could be specific methods that the organizations and politicians may do for necessary change in the system. These specific methods are straightforward compared to the vague purpose of conscious consumerism, in which the consumers do not even acknowledge where their money is spent. In other words, the efforts, time, and money that are excessively spent on moral superiority should be further spent on supporting and donating for organizations, activists, and politicians that directly work towards improving global conditions.

While conscious consumerism inefficiently helps global conditions for labor and the environment, there exist more efficient ways to help. However, it is also true that conscious consumerism remains to be one of the most popular consumption practices for sustainability and improvement of global conditions. Nevertheless, while people may think that they are using money as voting papers for sustainability and humane working conditions, they are simply economically burdened without making significant changes but for moral satisfaction of oneself. Thus, for long-term change in global conditions, resources spent on meaningless moral superiority should move on towards supporting organizations and activists that actually make meaningful contributions to the improvement of global conditions. In this way, the market will also shift to the way that respects both global environmental conditions and legitimate rights of workers.

Works Cited

Nguyen, Jennifer. “Conscious Consumerism: What It Is & Why Its Important in 2021.” Grow Ensemble, 5 Nov. 2020, https://growensemble.com/conscious-consumerism/.

Wise, Laura K. “The Evolution of the Conscious Consumer.” Means and Matters, 21 Oct. 2021, https://meansandmatters.bankofthewest.com/article/sustainable-living/taking-action/the-evolution-of-the-conscious-consumer/.

Wicker, Alden. “Conscious Consumerism Is a Lie. Here’s a Better Way to Help Save the World.” Quartz, Quartz, 7 Mar. 2017, https://qz.com/920561/conscious-consumerism-is-a-lie-heres-a-better-way-to-help-save-the-world/.

Cruz, Fernando Morales-de la. “Fairtrade and Most Certifications Are Not Fair.” HuffPost, HuffPost, 6 Dec. 2017, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/reflections-on-national-c_b_12247982.

Nini, Jennifer. “Why Making Conscious Consumer Choices Shouldn’t Be a Substitute for Political Action.” Eco Warrior Princess, 14 Apr. 2019, https://ecowarriorprincess.net/2019/04/why-conscious-consumer-choices-shouldnt-be-substitute-political-action/.