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Unilever made headlines last November when it announced plans to double sales while cutting environmental impacts in half over the next decade. The firm aims "to create a better future in which billions of people can increase their quality of life without increasing their environmental footprint."
The company isn't alone in paying attention to what's been called the next frontier in sustainability (pdf): "sustainable consumption," or how to deliver products and services to consumers within ecological limits.
It's a worthy and important goal. The only problem? The phrase sustainable consumption itself. As the name spreads throughout the business world, it might be time to question whether this part of sustainability strategy should be called something else.
The word consumption originally meant to waste (the disease consumption, incidentally, was also called the wasting disease) and still implies that something is being used up. When something's consumed, nothing's left. This runs counter to the image of a sustainable system, in which materials and energy are used cradle-to-cradle, in a closed loop.
Some companies use "sustainable consumerism" instead, but that doesn't quite seem right either: Consumerism is defined as fostering a desire to buy more and more goods and services (inherently unsustainable, at some point), and it still comes from the root "consume."
Consumption has long been a dirty word for environmentalists. The message has been that consumers buy too much, and so sustainable consumption may either strike some as an oxymoron or imply that everyone will be purchasing less. That misses part of the story.
"I worry about the term because I think the billions who lack adequate goods and services deserve to consume more," said Mark Lee, executive director of SustainAbility. "Too often folks in developed nations talk about reducing consumption, when I think it has to grow radically, but what is consumed must be sustainable."
Chris Librie, director of global sustainability at S.C. Johnson, prefers "consuming sustainably," which he feels sounds more positive. "Sustainable consumption can sound a little demotivating," Librie said. "The emphasis is only on the 'less' part of the story. That's definitely part of it, and something we need to get under control in the developed world. But 'consuming sustainably' opens up the idea of consumers making better choices, and becoming active participants in changing behaviors." To that end, S.C. Johnson is working not only to improve the sustainability of its products, but to educate consumers on product lifecycles and better product selection and use.
Dealing with "Consumption"
Dealing with "Consumption" issues...
We've been dealing with consumption issues for decades.
First as a "garbage' problem, then as a resource and energy problem, and now as an issue that incorporates the first two and includes the unintended consequences of molecular pollution, from the Pacific Gyre to the endocrine disrupters in our drinking water.
Some time back (20+ years) I wrote about the issue of consumption as a natural process and the fact that we - our society - had not aligned consumption with the natural systems around us. We still haven't. The article appeared in Design Perspectives in 1989, titled: "You Too Are A Natural Resource."
Extractions from the article:
"...The basic issue here is that the thing we call consumption is, in fact, not consumption at all, because we are not using things up. To consume something is to use it up. As basic primal creatures we did use things up and bring them back into the environment. We brought resources back into the environment in ways and in amounts that could be readily absorbed. We are now modifying, but not really consuming, the resources around us."
"...If we are all contributing to this state of abuse--and we are--we have to re-examine what we are doing, and I think we have to look at it on an individual level in order to have any real effect.
One of the things we all do is needlessly modify resources into products that are never consumed. So if we are to be true consumers, we should truly use up those resources, putting them back into a state that will accommodate natural absorption into the environment without harm or without the unbalancing effects they are currently having on the world. If we cannot put things into a state of absorption, we must either redirect them into other uses or recycle them so that they can be modified and used over and over again.
As I said earlier, we are all natural resources, yet we are probably the most inefficient of natural resources, because we do not process what we take in--we do not really consume. We short-circuit the consumption process. We have to be more productive in the true sense of the word "productive" in order to be participants in the environment. This kind of productivity is alien to what we have come to believe in western society. True productivity deals with really appropriate and meaningful consumption of resources. True productivity means utilizing the resource called mankind to its full potential."
Simple conclusions demanding sizeable efforts...
Every product we design needs to be designed, as function of a national, and preferably international, Design Policy that requires complete consumption and non-toxic reintegration of the resources embodied in the product and the processes from which those products are born.
Scale of production has increased by many magnitudes, yet we haven't very far towards solutions of scale in the past twenty-two years.
A systems-base and comprehensive Design Policy is essential. Without it the short-cut takers will continue to be rewarded as the community of responsible designers, manufacturers and distributors are disadvantaged. Garret Hardin, in his writing of The Tragedy of the Commons was right. He still is.
We need a comprehensive, systems-based and transparent product policy.
Hi Adele, Nice article and
Hi Adele,
Nice article and thought provoking as well. My company manufactures apparel made from 100% recycled fiber (pre-consumer recycled colored cotton and post-consumer recycled polyester from plastic bottles). A big part of our mission is to educate and in many cases it is through the written word that we attempt to explain who we are and what we do. Some language that we have found helpful in describing a change in the way that we act as consumers is this: Conscious consumerism (meaning that folks actually spend a little time learning about the products and processes employed in making the products), in other words, make the supplier of the product substantiate their claims. The other term we use is "redundant consumption", meaning that if you really look at the offerings out there, it is the goal of most companies to have you buy more, many times by calling virtually the same products something different. We try and build our products durably and with multiple use in mind so 1 item may replace the purchase of several.
Thanks again for your post and keep them coming!
Why not simply "responsible
Why not simply "responsible consumption"...
we just call it harmony!
we just call it harmony!
The term 'sustainable
The term 'sustainable consumption' has some merit as we have to consume to some degree to live. At what level consumption is sustainable is going to give a lot of people headaches. Our society will not be weaned from rampant consumerism overnight.
Running a business that makes eco friendly products (again debatable term) we strive to make a product that uses only or mostly recycled materials, has the lowest 'footprint' possible while working and lasting longer than any alternative. The idea is to cut the number of products being made by making them better. Making them from post consumer waste cuts energy and water use as well as natural resources. Also, the alternatives use vinyl.
It is still making a thing which is then consumed. By changing the thinking on what you are getting it would cut the footprint of office supplies by a huge amount. The next step is to reduce the need for storing papers altogether.