The Next Step: Government’s Engagement in Conscious Consumerism

Conscious consumerism is becoming more relevant in our lives as climate changes and existential environmental crises have been an increasing concern around the globe. As we traced back in history, explained by Stephe Plate, the conscious choice of specific products or, in other words, neglecting certain products is the action of boycotting that has been happening for an extremely long time. The boycott of British tea during the colonized American era is a well-known example as the people achieved their purpose by sanctioning British imports of tea. Even further in time, ancient Greece has performed such movements of voicing certain beliefs through people’s control of money. The purpose of boycotting is to achieve and protest certain aspects in a mass-controlled way as boycotting is done directly by every participant.

Similar to boycotting, the current system of conscious consumerism is the people’s selective choice of purchasing specific environmentally beneficial products. With this active engagement of the people’s conscious consuming power, people are able to interfere and help the happening world issues like global warming and climate changes. People are using the intentional choice of purchased items to support and fight against factors, including a particular person, an organization, or a corporation, that contribute to global warming. It is a way of speech through economic control by the people that makes people think they are in control of their own lives. Just like Stephe Plate stated in the article, “consumer activism, boycotts included, puts power in the hands of the people” (Plate). In other words, Plate believes conscious consumerism allows a self-established and controlled relationship between individual corporations and the general masses, which seems to elevate people’s voices to a new height without rigid government participation. I agree with Plate’s view that the current approach of conscious consumerism creates a more mass-inclusive pathway for activation of changes that bring a better future for the world as it allows people to perform efforts directly. However, I believe that the existing structure of conscious consumerism is not sufficient enough for the issues we are facing currently. The rate of the current worsening on all conditions is considered too fast compared to the speed of conscious consumerism outcomes.

Indeed, conscious consumerism is helping global conditions as every little help contributes to a better future. And the intentionality behind these choices made by the people, disregarding their hidden privileges and other unfavorable agencies, is the most crucial and fundamental factor in helping the world’s global conditions. But due to realistic challenges like cost or the most simple human trait of lust for convenience and pursuit of profit over the environment, most people and corporations will not actively initiate conscious consumerism even if they already know the importance and urgency behind the global issues. So in this sense, there needs to be some form of change to the current conscious consumerism model for the present world, which is the addition of active and authoritative regulations that force the world’s population into participating in conscious consumerism. Some say the current system of conscious consumerism is effective through the established purchasing chain between people and the independent-operating corporations. I argue that the government’s proactive mandates targeting corporations’ green policies like lowering the price of specific green products’ raw materials are necessary to achieve more effective conscious consumerism results. It is because the current people-based conscious consumerism structure is too weak to actualize changes in the capitalist market as companies wouldn’t, without government enforcement, actively engage in the normalization of prerogative conscious consumerism products as they weigh profit over the environment.

Viewing the issues regarding conscious consumerism in-depth, the primary reason behind the lack of efficiency in progress and speed in the result is the high price and rare accessibility of eco-friendly products on the market due to the lack of obligating force regarding green policies from the governments to corporations. The self-controlled conscious consumerism system restricts purchases to only a small portion of people. In detail, Alden Wicker identifies that “the sustainability movement has been charged with being elitist” (Wicker). Wicker points out the hidden criteria for serving the current conscious consumerism as the action is privileged and is only applicable for those who have reached certain financial ability because the rarity and high cost in productions led to high in price and rare to attain. In agreement with Wicker, I believe that conscious consumerism’s high entry requirements are the main reason behind the slow results as only a few percent of the world’s population is physically engaging in conscious consumerism through selective consumption. As long as there is no rigid outside enforcement on the price of sustainable goods, the existing privilege of conscious consumerism will continue in the future. Thus, the loose engagement of government regulations in the purchasing chain between corporations and consumers contributed to building required privileges criteria for entering conscious consumerism.

Furthermore, the tiny and highly individualized supports would not help change the global conditions as they are too impotent and too late in an already matured capitalist market structure. Wicker commented on the world’s current rigid market structure of capitalism as it profoundly relies on consumption, promoting corporations’ competitions that result in the ascending prices of eco-friendly goods. The current state of conscious consumerism that is solely based on the efforts of individuals and corporations is then impossible to move the rooted and long practiced market structure. Thus, I believe that conscious consumerism’s ineffectiveness due to high pricing and rare accessibility is caused by the lack of government regulations targeting the corporations’ green policies as it requires external forces to lower the price of green productions and heighten corporations’ engagement in the people-based conscious consumerism system. Government actions are then necessary to make conscious consumerism more effective and initiate changes to the economy.

Some people may wonder why I believe the addition of government influences will bring changes to the economy, in this sense, conscious consumerism. The reason can be found in the history of conscious consumerism, as political authorities have always been critical in the evolving conscious consumerism system. For example, in response to United States government opposition towards environmentalists in achieving greener policies around the early 21st century, the environmentalists’ approach pushed the emergence and prevailing of conscious consumerism. After the election of George W. Bush in the year 2000 with strong support from high energy and resource demand industries, the national policies regarding the environment became greatly controversial and disputed as the president, representing a country’s federal level, favors the opposing side of the environmentalists. Concerning the issue, “many advocacy groups deepened ties with businesses to influence corporate policies,” (Weeks) specified by Jennifer Weeks in the article Buying Green. In other words, Weeks believes the primary reason behind the uprising of conscious consumerism during this time is because the environmentalists, due to the president’s position on the issue, chose to cooperate with individual businesses through specific corporations’ policies rather than the previous federal government through incapacitated national regulations. I agree with Weeks’ idea because the shift from a loosely controlled, broad, and already disputed approach of national environmental policies due to the election of George W. Bush to a more specific and accessible approach of individual corporate policies allowed a new method for people to engage in eco-friendly actions with self-acknowledgment. The shift initiated the trend of companies producing green products available on the present market, the first prominent appearance of daily-purchasing green products that later became conscious consumerism. This one election then indicates the importance of government authority in solving environmental conditions as it caused a shift in approach and initiated the uprising of conscious consumerism.

So knowing the fact that government and political influences are indispensable factors in the emergence of conscious consumerism as it influences the direction of environmentalists’ approaches, the government, facing the challenging question of the ineffectiveness of conscious consumerism due to high pricing and rare accessibility, should promptly act with corporations’ green policies, for example, policies that lower the corporations’ specifically needed raw materials for producing conscious consumerism goods. Like Andrew Krosofsky said in the article, one primary reason behind the high price of sustainable products is its original production cost with expensive raw materials. The scientific investments behind the all-natural fibers, cruelty-free compounds, and many more raw materials all cost significant financial input. So, I believe with government-enforced policies that target corporations to lower the price of the needed materials for sustainable productions, conscious consumerism products, in general, will descend in price that allows more people to access and purchase them. As the number of transactions increases, conscious consumerism will slowly become the norm of daily purchases with more participants and businesses, resulting in higher impacts on environmental issues, overcoming the ineffectiveness of conscious consumerism. The bigger goal for conscious consumerism goods to become an everyday occurrence will be closer to achieving. And with the majority of the population on Earth performing conscious consumerism habitually, the environmental crisis will start to ease off in response.

Undoubtedly, the method has one major issue: how exactly can and whether or not governments around the world will actually unite together for performing such activity, disregarding the intensive competitions in both political and financial aspects. Even though the environmental crisis is more critical than ever, the unification of different countries will be extremely hard as each country has its own needs and desires on the world stage. The issue is then the realistic side of the method and which I believe needs much more discussion and ideas to solve.

Nevertheless, conscious consumerism is the first step toward a better world and environment in the future as the intentionality and effort for changes are the most valuable factors in this race between humans and the world. With government regulations like policies regarding sustainable goods’ raw materials, conscious consumerism products will become cheaper and more accessible for the people and thus be more effective as more people and businesses participate in this event related to every person on Earth. The environmental crisis is approaching faster than ever, and it is our responsibility to enact actions upon it as we are not saving the Earth but saving ourselves.