The ineffectiveness of conscious consumerism

While I chose the topic of conscious consumerism with the plan of arguing in favor of it, after going through the assigned readings I found myself agreeing with the other side. I would like to think that even the smallest acts of conscious consumerism, such as buying an eco-friendly shirt or going to a local food place instead of Mcdonalds, make all the difference when it comes to saving our environment but the reality is they don’t. In fact, they only distract from actual ways to make the kind of change that makes a difference.

It is no secret that eco-friendly alternatives are also the more expensive ones and are therefore accessible only to a limited group of people that are able to afford them. Conscious consumerism has become a way for many people to make themselves feel good about their lifestyle as well as something to hide behind when the issue is brought up. “Moral” purchasing choices cannot be a substitute for taking steps towards real systematic change and unfortunately many consider it one. Buying shampoo that is more environmentally friendly is not the same as participating in political action such as protesting or lobbying.

On top of being elitist, conscious consumerism is also very time consuming and inconvenient. This may be worth the sacrifice if individual acts of conscious consumerism actually made a difference in improving our environment. However, as professor Brown explains, “consumption is the backbone of the American economy — which means individual conscious consumerism is basically bound to fail.” Even if a person thinks they are making all the right choices when it comes to buying products, there are so many harmful things that are unavoidable in our day to day life. So while someone might be buying organic dairy products, they are also inevitably using products with palm oil which is the leading factor in rainforest destruction.

It would be unfair to expect people to spend money, time, and energy on buying eco-friendly products when there is no data that actually shows it makes any sort of significant difference. For this reason, it would be much more effective to focus our energy and resources into making systematic change through meaningful political action.