Conscious Consumerism: A Luxurious Failure

In 1854, the concept of protecting the environment was first suggested and became popular when the world entered the era of industrialization. As consumers place such awareness into the context of economic markets, the appeal of purchasing environmentally friendly commodities becomes the essence of the modern practice for buying green. In the recent ten years, the concept of conscious consumerism has risen and gradually emerged to become the mainstream. It encourages people to shop in a way that positively impacts the environment and more importantly, boycotts companies that are unsustainable and waste natural resources. While some say conscious consumerism lays a foundation in raising the awareness of protecting the environment, it fails to cause a positive and structural impact within markets. Many consumers with regular income fail to afford those luxurious products marketed by companies, thus limiting the target audience to elite classes and reducing the effectiveness of the practice.

Admittedly, conscious consumerism still has its significance. Conscious consumerism advocates that individual consumers’ choices can positively impact the worsening global environment. According to Stephie Grob Plante from the article, “Shopping has become a political act. Here’s how it happened,” “conscious consumption has made more people think about the resources that go into the stuff we buy and about what happens to our stuff when we throw it away.” The practice leads people to think and conduct research before purchasing any commodities. This is proof of society’s increasing awareness of the worsening global natural environment and their resolution to change. By encouraging consumers to buy eco-friendly items, conscious consumerism has taken a solid first step so far.

However, conscious consumerism seems too ideal. Rather than an urgent solution in addressing environmental problems, companies take advantage of conscious consumerism as a marketing strategy and advocate it as a kind of luxury. The author Stephie elaborated: “research has shown that conscious consumerism’s popularity can also be tied to its elite nature… in part because of high price tags, in part because of championing among celebrities, in part because of its en vogueiness.” In other words, by employing the strategy of celebrity promotion and raising the selling prices, companies shape conscious consumerism as a new type of luxury in the market. In fact, without notice, these companies’ marketing strategy has replaced the original message of protecting the environment with having an elegant, green, and “en vogueiness” living style. More seriously, some companies even try to adopt the practice of “greenwashing” by deceiving the consumers regarding their so-called “sustainable environmental practices” to seek more business opportunities and profits. Malicious acts like raising the price to an unreasonable extent will easily lead the customers to fall into a financial pitfall. Under the capitalistic environment, this idealistic concept goes entirely against the original expectation of protecting the environment and becomes another commercial instrument to make money. Though having a great intention, conscious consumerism is gilded outside but rotten inside.

Companies’ promotion of conscious consumerism as a high-end fashion ultimately leads to its limited influence within the market. The author Alden Wicker in the passage “Conscious Consumerism is a lie. Here’s a better way to save the world,” further explained: “You need a fair amount of disposable income to afford ethical and sustainable consumption options… the luxury to turn up your nose at 95% of what you’re offered, and … a post-graduate degree in chemistry to understand the true meaning behind ingredient labels.’” Alden argues that high disposable income and professional knowledge are required to be a qualified conscious consumer. However, only elite classes have enough income, time, and knowledge bases. It is nearly impossible for regular consumers to keep up with these requirements. As typical working classes, they have little time to research all their purchases. At the same time, those costly products will set up a high barrier of entry and remain out of reach for regular consumers. The population’s limited access leads to the failure to spread awareness of protecting the environment.

It is worth noting that sometimes a wealthier conscious consumer can deal more damage to the environment than regular working classes. People from higher-income classes often seek an entertaining and comfortable living style. Stephie states in her article, “conscious consumers tend to be well-educated…and well-educated people typically earn a good income [, the] income that buys them nice cars and tickets on commercial planes and air conditioning units and so on.” Well-educated people with higher income will spend more on other purchases that produce significant carbon emissions like commercial planes and air conditioning, which offsets the carbon emissions they “saved” from conscious consumerism. Sometimes, the idea of conscious consumerism might achieve the opposite effect by prompting consumers to buy other commodities that are harmful to the environment. Purchasing more sustainable products in one area would only let consumers feel less guilty and have the illusion that they have fulfilled their responsibilities of saving the planet. Hence, without the moral obligation and guilt holding their back, consumers would make decisions without further considering its environmental impact. In the long term, conscious consumerism would have potentially cause backlashes. The advertised healthier and greener lifestyle remains fraudulent.

The lack of effectiveness of conscious consumerism fails to cause a structural impact on the market. According to the article “Brands, You Need to Listen to the Conscious Consumerism of the Future” by Jonquil Hackenberg, “what’s needed is a complete overhaul, from start to finish, of how a business operates–no matter its size or scale. To do so in a way that creates the most value means grounding sustainability in what consumers want and need”. Hackenberg illustrates that a significant effort to renovate the business strategies and prioritize sustainability is needed to shape the market environmentally friendly in the long term. Current businesses strategy builds upon satisfying the ever-changing consumers. Thus, companies put the needs and want of consumers as the top priority, while environmental awareness always comes as an additional factor. Though recently many companies have stressed the initiative of sustainability, it still derives from the spur-of-the-moment need of consumers, and the tide may ebb at any time. Hence, revolutionizing the market and setting the norm of protecting the environment as the foundation becomes necessary to ensure the market is sustainable in the long term. However, the impact of conscious consumerism is limited due to high prices and inconsistent purchasing behaviors. It fails to reach the level of a complete overhaul. As a result, companies do not recognize conscious consumerism as an invincible power of change.

What is an alternative approach? Through enacting governmental policies on the market? While rules can forcefully make companies follow, coming up with an effective policy without side effects is especially hard and involves too many political struggles. The most feasible solution is to invest in technology and accelerate research. It may sound counterintuitive since more technology often means more pollution. The reality is the opposite: pollution will no longer be a concern if all the technologies we are experimenting with come true. In the book The Future is Faster Than You Think by Peter H. Diamandis and Steve Kotler, Uber has already realized the technology of the aerial car, using electricity and eco-friendly microprocessors. More impressively, with the convergence of 3-D printing, A.I., and advanced radar technology, there are great possibilities that the cost of aerial cars will be cheaper than gasoline cars in the future. Aerial ridesharing is an inevitable trend in the future — it is just a matter of time. It can significantly reduce carbon emissions as gasoline cars gradually disappear from the markets. More importantly, the technology accords with the government’s interests for future planning incentives, companies for profit and cost-saving incentives, and consumers for reducing daily expenses incentives. The authors mentioned that more inventions like powerful solar panels would occur after the convergence of technology. A future without pollution and global warming are bright.

Through conscious consumerism, society took a significant step forward in raising the awareness of protecting the environment. However, when put into practice, the plan still has several loopholes and fails to achieve the original expectation of revolutionizing the market. Alternatively, investing in technology becomes a more desirable solution to protect the environment. We recognize that revolutionizing the present system is impossible, so it’s time for us to invest in our future.