a peaceful space

Changing Consumption

dpruitt — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 16:38:14 +0000

“It’s no longer enough to change our light bulbs. We need to change our culture.”

So says Erik Assadourian, senior researcher at the Worldwatch Institute and project director of a provocative and timely new book called 2010 State of the World: Transforming Cultures from Consumerism to Sustainability. Its argument is simple: The most important driver of the world’s ecological crises, including climate change, is not venal oil or coal companies or indifferent politicians but western consumer culture — that is, us.

Global consumption has grown dramatically since World War II, reaching $30.5 trillion in 2006, up sixfold since 1960. This is, in part, a very good thing — billions of people have emerged from poverty — but today’s prevailing consumption patterns are, quite simply, unsustainable. The rich (meaning you and me) are the worst offenders but ecologists say that even at income levels that we think of as substandard — say, $5,000 or $6,000 per person per year — people are consuming at rates that will deplete the earth’s resources, cause catastrophic climate change, wipe our species and generally trash the only planet we have. About a third of the world’s people live above this standard, and the others, presumably, aspire to do the same.

This is not a message that either business or mainstream environmental groups want you to hear, which is why you don’t hear it often. Most businesses, though not all of them, are in the business of persuading people to consume more. . .

Most people understand — and psychological studies of happiness confirm — that after we have achieved basic economic security (itself a cultural norm), what really makes us happy are close relationships, meaningful work, connections to community and good health.

You can’t buy those things at the mall.

“Two centuries of intentional cultivation of consumerism has led to us seeing it as perfectly natural to define ourselves primarily by what and how much we consume,” he said. Consumerism is so embedded in our culture today that, most of the time, it’s as invisible as the air we breathe.

The Impact of Culture

Here’s how Assadourian explained the oft-hidden impact of culture on our lives: The fact that we see it as normal to be able to identify hundreds of brand logos and jingles, while few of us can identify more than a few species of wild plants and animals — that’s culture. The fact that we feed our children diets high in sugars, fats, and processed ingredients, even when we know this is making them fat and sick — that’s culture. The fact that when loved ones die a ritual intended to lay them to rest requires injecting them with toxic chemicals and sealing their bodies up in expensive and ecologically costly caskets — that’s culture. And the fact that we spend thousands of dollars each year on pets that we now see as part of the family, buying them food, toys, even health care that’s better than many people in the world can afford — that’s culture.

It’s all true, if mildly depressing. The Independent newspaper quoted one critic who said people need to be persuaded of the benefits of tackling climate change, rather than be presented with a “defeatist and doomsday scenario.”

So how do we get from here to where we need to go? “The good news,” Assadourian went on, “is that we can replace our consumer culture with a culture of sustainability.”

How, exactly, isn’t entirely clear. The Worldwatch book is a useful place to start — it includes contributions from about 50 writers and thinkers, including Muhammad Yunus, the 2006 Nobel laureaute, who wrote the foreword, and such cultural critics and analysts as Juliet Schor, Michael Shuman and John DeGraaf. Ray Anderson of Interface (who I blogged about here) co-authored a chapter on how business cultures can adapt to a culture of sustainability.

Actually, if you look around, it’s easy to see green shoots, albeit very small ones, that could grow into a culture of sustainability. The Great Recession has revived the virtues of thrift and frugality (although the just-concluded Christmas shopping season wasn’t bad at all.) Governments are created “choice architectures” to promote CFL bulbs and discourage plastic bags. School lunches are slowly getting healthier, at least in Britain, Rome and Grenoble, France, according to a chapter of the book titled Rethinking School Food: The Power of the Public Palate.

Religious leaders could, in theory, lead this cultural revolution and, in fact, some are stepping forward. A group called Interfaith Power & Light is organizing churches and synagogues to coordinate a religious response to global warming. As the Worldwatch Institute reported on its Transforming Cultures blog, Pope Benedict used his annual New Year’s addresses to talk about care for the environment, writing:

… the issue of environmental degradation challenges us to examine our life-style and the prevailing models of consumption and production, which are often unsustainable from a social, environmental and even economic point of view . . .

Who knows? If advertising and media sold us on the value of consumerism, maybe the same tools can be used to sell us on the value of a more sustainable culture. Jonah Sachs, creative director of Free Range Studies, who cowrote a chapter in the book called “From Selling Soap to Selling Sustainability: Social Marketing,” noted during the conference call that the tools of advertising are now low-cost and ubiquitous.

“People can find stories that appeal to them, share them with their friends and create explosive and cheap campaigns,” Sachs said. Social marketing, he writes, has helped discourage smoking, promote seat belt use and raise awareness about obesity. If advertising and marketing helped create consumerism in just a few decades, social marketers could undermine it.

More to come on this topic, which deserves more attention. For now, if you haven’t seen it, check out the opening of activist Annie Leonard’s video The Story of Stuff, which was made by Free Range Studios and has been viewed by more than 7 million people and translated into 10 languages since it was released on the Internet a couple of years ago. You can find the rest here.

From the article “Why We Need a Cultural Revolution in Consumption”, By Marc Gunther

“Green” Marketing Potential

dpruitt — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 15:16:45 +0000

Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability (LOHAS) describes an estimated $230 billion U.S. marketplace for goods and services focused on health, the environment, social justice, personal development and sustainable living. The consumers attracted to this market represent a sizable group in this country. Approximately 19% percent of the adults in the U.S., or 41 million people, are currently considered LOHAS Consumers. This is based on surveys of the U.S. adult population estimated at 215 million.

Research shows that one in four adult Americans is part of this group—nearly 41 million people. These consumers are the future of businesses focused on sustaibility, health and peaceful well-being. These consumers are also the future of progressive social, environmental and economic change in this country. But their power as a consumer market remains virtually untapped.Environmental concerns, human health, and human rights do not completely describe the LOHAS consumer. As one definition asserts, “The holistic world view of the LOHAS consumer is a belief in the interconnectedness of global economies, cultures, environments, and political systems, as well as the interconnectedness of mind, body, and spirit within individuals in order to achieve full human potential. Personal development is of utmost concern to LOHAS consumers. Spirituality is no longer relegated to the New Age periphery but has immigrated to the center.”

This new market and any approach to this market defies the typical demographical group defined by age, income, or other definitive means. Although these data can be valuable, they fail to define the LOHAS consumer who cuts across multiple boundaries and represents “higher-being” ideals. Their social consciousness, rather than their generation or socio-economic status defines these LOHAS consumers, thereby posing unique challenges for retailers seeking to market to them.

According to Joesph Marra, director of marketing at Natural Marketing Institute (NMI), ”one of the distinguishing things about this movement is that it is not organized. It is something that people are coming to on their own.” Unlike age, or even income categorizations, the LOHAS consumer becomes one by feeling strongly about something and making his or her own conscious decision to act in a certain way.

As Steve French and Monica Emerich wrote in an article entitled, “The LOHAS Consumer Identified,” (LOHAS Journal, Spring 2002), “The LOHAS marketplace is labyrinthine. It is a complex structure of consumers who defy traditional socioeconomic and demographic categorization . . . and a broad array of companies across many industries.”

Green Buildings: Fewer Sick Days, Higher Rents

dpruitt — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 02:54:37 +0000

Environmentally-friendly construction practices have gotten a lot of hype over the past few years but do they really pay off as an investment? A new study found that tenants in green buildings experience increased productivity and fewer sick days. The research also found that green buildings have lower vacancy rates and higher rents than non-green counterparts.

The study, conducted by the University of San Diego and commercial real estate broker CB Richard Ellis Group, found that tenants in green buildings such as the Behnisch Architekten-designed Unilever offices in Hamburg are more productive based on two measures: the average number of tenant sick days and a productivity change. Respondents reported an average of 2.88 fewer sick days in their current green office versus their previous non-green office. About 55% of respondents indicated that employee productivity had improved.

Based on the average tenant salary, an office space of 250 square feet per worker and 250 workdays a year, the decrease in sick days translated into a net impact of nearly $5.00 per square foot per year. The increase in productivity translated into a net impact of about $20 per square foot. The study also showed that green buildings have 3.5% lower vacancy rates and 13% higher rental rates than the market.

The work was based on surveys of 154 buildings under CBRE’s management, totaling more than 51.6 million square feet and housing 3,000 tenants in ten markets across the U.S. The study defined a green building as those with LEED certification at any level or those that bear the EPA ENERGY STAR ® label.

Another report out in the past week concluded that constructing new green buildings or retrofitting existing structures with energy efficient air conditioning, solar panels and the like will support 7.9 million U.S. jobs and pump $554 billion into the American economy over the next four years. The study, by the U.S. Green Building Council and Booz Allen Hamilton, determined that green construction spending currently supports more than 2 million American jobs and generates more than $100 billion in gross domestic product and wages.

The economic impact of the total green construction market from 2000 to 2008, the study found, was $178 billion. It created or saved 2.4 million jobs and generated $123 billion in wages.

The U.S. Green Building Council certifies LEED buildings and obviously has an interest in the movement, but Rick Fedrizzi, chief exec of the group said something remarkably down to earth in releasing the report: “Our goal is for the phrase ‘green building’ to become obsolete, by making all building and retrofits green – and transforming every job in our industry into a green job.”