Conscious Consumerism is Nice, But It’s Time For Conscious Consumer Advocacy
Conscious consumerism is a shopping style that people adopt to buy more eco-friendly and ethical goods. Whether that be because they want to buy products, they know are reducing pollution in the environment like reusable straws and being ethically sourced from farmers, or for more individual choices like having organic products in their household. People argue that “greener” shopping decisions made by consumers are not as impactful as believed and will not make global changes. They argue that an individual’s change, such as switching from plastic toothbrushes to bamboo ones, is good but major companies continue with their unsustainable practices and so in the end the shopper’s bamboo toothbrush is redundant as it does not get to the root of the issue. In truth, conscious consumerism does helps working and environmental conditions only because it incentivizes companies to improve their business model in order to attract and retain consumer loyalty. However, conscious consumerism shopping makes only isolated positive changes in the marketplace. Meaning, rather than a rule, it is an option for companies to make greener changes, therefore conscious consumers should focus on government advocacy and demand its governments enact greener polices in order to get more transparent and ethical supply chains.
A tactic we see conscious consumers use is “voting with your dollar” meaning that shoppers can show their support — or subsequent disapproval — of a product or company by deciding to shop with them or never shop with them. Consumers are led to believe their ethical spending will carry enough sway to incentivize companies to improve their practices, and that their greener purchase is contributing to a greener era. Critics denote this as a well-intentioned but doomed to fail tactic, precisely because consumers believe it makes an impact when in reality, it doesn’t amount to much. . As sustainable lifestyle blogger and writer for Quartz news outlet Alden Wicker notes, “A 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.” Therefore, despite individuals making the active choice to buy greener products, the bottom line is those changes don’t amount to the effect they thought it did. So by “voting with your dollar” consumers are neither effectively changing business models widespread or stopping the landfill from growing. The incentive doesn’t always work, but when it does, it has potential to make a change.
While it is indeed a reach to say that “voting with your dollar” will change every single business, it does in fact work, and can work to have a large impact. This tactic, when it is effective, has prompted companies to create initiatives to better align themselves with the values of their customers as they want to retain those consumers for long term and attract new consumers looking for “green alternatives.” For example, the coffee mega giant Starbucks typically resides in metropolitan areas where it’s consumer demographic cares about environmentalism. We can take it’s founding city, Seattle Washington as an example. Back in 2014, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray said ““Our commitment to sustainable practices and innovative solutions begins and ends with our residents and businesses.” In response to Seattle’s awarded 5-STAR community rating evaluates the livability and sustainability of communities in the US. And recently during the past year the City of Seattle introduced the Green New Deal Executive Order, which will “climate pollution-free city aims to create jobs and advance an equitable transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy by prioritizing investments in communities historically most harmed by economic, racial, and environmental injustices.” (Seattle.gov) This demonstrates that Seattle and it’s residents have a long-standing history prioritizing environmental initiatives. As they prioritize values of environmentalism, they will be in support of business that share the same values, which is why in order to maintain and attract new consumers, Starbucks’ initiatives would reflect those same values. Starbucks has “shared its multi-decade commitment to become a resource positive company by storing more carbon than it emits, eliminating waste, and replenishing more freshwater than it uses. (Starbucks) This means their 2030 environmental goals include have a fifty percent reduction in carbon, water, and waste production. Likewise, it’s invested in its coffee farmers to support agronomy and restoration improvements in their native homeland and is transparent of where there coffee is sourced. Starbucks didn’t have to do this, but they did because Starbucks knows its consumer demographic appreciates greener movements and people would be more inclined to shop with Starbucks and pay their higher prices as they believe they are contributing to these positive green actions compared to shopping with another coffeeshop. Additionally, another big brand name is also working to make more transparent products — Lush. The cosmetics brand is built upon the image and promise of cruelty free and organic makeup and self care products. As consumers rely on Lush’s promise of ethical beauty and self-care products, they’ve recently moved from using real to synthetic mica — a mineral used to give makeup products their glimmer. Mica is often delivered to consumers without the knowledge that it could have been mined on underpaid and child labor. Lush’s decision to use synthetic mica means they are taking a stand against such practices. This demonstrates how consumers can make big changes and have improved environmental and global conditions as their sway — by power of voting with their dollar- has incentivized companies to start such initiatives.
And while incentivized companies make large changes and appears that conscious consumerism certainly improves global conditions, the reality is that such changes are a choice for companies to make. The big[MC3] changes and goals set out by Starbucks and Lush, while impactful and serve as solutions, are not a universal plan for all companies, rather something the two companies incentivized by their consumers — decided to do. In fact, because consumers think that they are contributing to a greater cause and are making an impact by “voting with their dollar” and certain green initiatives from brands, they ignore the structural incentives that allow companies to have unsustainable and unethical practices.
They are a variety of industries that are unsustainable and unethical which you may have heard of. Plastic — of which we are still unsure of its lifetime- is used in almost all packaged food and both has unknown number of years to biodegrade and an emission-heavy process. Meanwhile palm oil is a leading cause of deforestation and hides behind different names when labeled. Perhaps most familiar to you is fast fashion. A large fair of clothes are specifically designed to be fast fashion — something worn for a bit, discarded, and adding the next best thing to the shopping cart, all while ignoring the environmental and ethical cost it took to produce that first and now discarded shirt. As McFall-Johnsen for Business Insider notes, “The fashion industry is also the second-largest consumer of water worldwide.”
For one cotton shirt, perhaps one you’re wearing right now, it takes about 700 gallons of water to produce because it’s made of cotton — a highly water- intensive plant. And so many consumers aren’t even aware that when they’re purchasing a shirt, they are also purchasing 700 gallons of water. Neither are they aware that with textile dyeing, “Approximately 20% of the wastewater worldwide is attributed to this process, which accumulates over time.” (Le, N) And so, fashion takes a tremendous amount of water, and companies because of oversea factories and labor, are able to get away with environmentally damaging practices. But because fast fashion produces at a rapid pace with companies releasing collections quickly and in higher quantities and has consumers buying more but keeping clothes for half as long, the damage of producing fast fashion is even more damaging. Ethically, fashion brands are also able to hide their malpractices. Many companies have factories overseas, where they can find cheap labor and cheaper costs overall as they adhere to the laws of where their factory resides in, “…they may be in countries without strict environmental regulations, resulting in untreated water to enter the oceans.”
Countries without strict environmental or labor laws allow companies to produce at a cheaper cost and ignore environmental impacts. Consumers are — because of lack of transparent supply chains- unaware of the working conditions their product was produced in. For companies, ensuring that ingredients were ethically sourced takes time and a higher price tag, finding alternatives that would cost them more money just isn’t worth it to the vast majority of companies. Especially not when people who either don’t care about greener options or don’t have the economic luxury to buy greener options will still continue to buy their products despite not being “green.” — they might lose that one conscious consumer, but it won’t hurt enough to switch their entire business model. Therefore, greener laws and practices need to be commonplace, that those who care can buy green easily, those who don’t care end up buying green, and those who can’t afford the greener options can buy green because all companies would have some sort of greener impact.
Currently there are government regulations in place to keep people safe. We know that child labor is illegal in the US, certain working conditions have to be met and so on. Anyone that has worked before knows there’s a standard. But government regulations regarding an ethical, sustainable, and transparent supply chain are lax compared to the green changes that need to be made now for all companies to make more sustainable choices, and so conscious consumers need to advocate for stricter ones. For example, companies are “green washing” their products, meaning they are making their company and product appear more sustainable that it actually is. Many companies greenwash their products — meaning a product can claim to be “organic,” when standards of qualifications aren’t exactly hard to pass. We see this as “In a review of 1,108 consumer products that made environmental claims, TerraChoice found that all but one provided some form of false or misleading information.” (Weeks, Buying Green) We see that even when regulations are in place, companies will still try to cut and mislead the consumers choice of buying green, and consumers will be leaving stores with the belief that their purchase contributed to a greener goal. While buying green products certainly means being able to sway company decisions to go green, some companies will try to undermine these efforts.
That’s why consumers need to advocate and vote into office officials that will strictly take a stance for transparent supply chain management, rather than simply buying green. Voting into office politicians that support conscious consumers values can lead to lasting impacts. We can see that even past conscious consumers acted on this with the support and subsequent passing of the Lacey Act in 1900 -the first federal law protecting wildlife. The act incurs penalties for illegal trade ‘and regulates the import of species protected by law and prevents invasive species from being transported in. But could an act from the 1900’s be perfect? The answer is no. That’s why it’s important that laws are both being advocated to pass, but also improved as time goes on. People continuously caring about policies is why in 2008 the Lacey Act was amended with the “Farm Bill” to include a “wider variety of prohibited plants and plant products, including products made from illegally logged woods, for import.” according to the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service This matters because “…global deforestation is a problem” notes “The Atlantic” writer Robinson Meyer. Though I’m sure from seeing the burning Amazon on the news two years, you don’t need me to tell you that. But that’s why the Lacey Act and Farm Bill are important, as the Lacey act has contributed to the fact that “Imports of illegal wood into the United States have declined by between 32 and 44 percent since the Lacey amendments took effect.” (ucsusa.org) Meaning stricter regulations on transparency can and do tackle unsustainable and unethical practices by not only banning unethical wood imports, but even having this bill is making it so companies have to make the change in order to sell their products.
People and industries didn’t just choose a greener option; the laws make it so there is only green options. Albeit there is still a long way to go for widespread green practices, and no law is perfect, policies like these cut down on unsustainable practices and can always be improved — that is if conscious consumers truly care and take it a step further than “voting with your dollar.” Having sway for companies to switch to greener initiatives is just the baseline, focusing on consumers’ awareness and pushing for stronger government regulations will make sure both the government and companies know that consumers are wanting real greener alternatives, just like the Farm Bill works to regulate plant species and wood imports.
Defenders will say it’s better to do something than to do nothing, especially when as is, the government isn’t doing much. And they’re right, if you can afford to buy reusable straws, then for all it’s worth — go for it. But we have to recognize that some people choosing greener options like a reusable straw will not cancel out the million tons of waste generated each year. Likewise, not even can afford selective greener options. When you’re on a budget it’s impossible to switch from your plastic bottled shampoo to more organic shampoo that costs twice as much and generally doesn’t last as long. Likewise, criticism of the current government is valid. Why isn’t the government doing more? The answer is because we’re not demanding they do more. People will try to individually do more, after all, “Globally, we’re projected to spend $9.32 billion in 2017 on green cleaning products.” (Wicker, Quartz) but again this will only support greener companies and not set a requirement for all companies and only be accessible for those who can afford it. If people opted to use that money to support organizations and lobbying our governments for the green changes we want to see across the entire market, then there would be a tangible and great effect on global environmental and working conditions.
While buying greener options certainly can incentivize and create greater change as seen with companies such as Starbucks and Lush, the reality is that they’re isolated events and the change is being generated by the one company that you’re supporting rather than a standard greener practice for all companies. Consumers can and should continue to choose the greener option when they can, but more importantly get down to the root of issues so that they can truly make a change with the power they have. So at the end of the day, if you have the ability to do so, spend your time and money getting to the root of issues, and future you won’t have to rely on buying what seems like the greener option, to make a lasting positive change.
Bibliography
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