Sustainable lifestyle blogger, Alden Wicker, has written an op-ed for QZ, in which she argues that conscious consumerism is actually taking time, money, and effort away from fixing the real problems that plague our society and planet.
While we’d all like to believe that we can make a difference by “voting with our wallet,” ultimately, we’re still just consuming things we don’t need. As Halina Szejnwald Brown, professor of environmental science and policy at Clark University, and whom Wicker interviewed for her article explains, “all the systems, the market, the institutions, everything [in a capitalist society] is calibrated to maximize consumption… The whole marketing industry and advertising invents new needs we didn’t know we had.”
In reality, favoring eco-friendly products doesn’t address the systemic causes of exploitative business models, it just silences our own personal guilt. And while there are a few lifestyle choices that can make a significant difference, like living in a densely populated area with public transit, cutting red meat out of our diet, or having fewer children, there will never be a product that’s completely free of some kind of social or environmental degradation, so buying our way out simply isn’t going to work.
Wicker then goes on to suggest that what would actually create large-scale change is using some of the money we spend on “green” products to help fund organizations that target issues within supply chains, and / or using the time we spend on researching purchases to volunteer, phone local representatives, or make our voices heard at town hall meetings.
You can read more about it at QZ.
