We cannot continue to consume more and more and still believe that both the world will continue to provide all the resources we need and that somehow those same limited resources can provide everyone else in the world with the same level of good living. If we are to address both local and global inequalities and live within the Earth’s planetary boundaries, we in the richer echelons of the economic system must consume less. This does not mean that we have to lower our living standards but rather adapt them. We can have good living standards whilst consuming less.
Rather than finding green and/or ethical alternatives products to maintain our lifestyles, we might rather want to reflect on the idea of ‘enoughness’*. We live in a society and an economic system which sees having a better life and having more to consume as two things that run in tandem. But that may not be so. Having more to consume may make us anxious, may give us more responsibilities, may increase our dependency on things that costs more than we can afford. Having more to consume will likely increase the amount of ‘waste’ be that extra packaging or the single use, throw away nature of the product.
Paper hankies can make our lives easier but they create waste from the tissue that is thrown away, and from the plastic packet or paper box in which they were packed. A cotton handkerchief can be washed and reused giving years of use from a single purchase.
Kitchen gadgets – magi-mixers, stick blenders, spice grinders, soup and ice-cream makers, air fryers, sandwich toasters: the list is endless – can make our lives easier but do we use all of them sufficiently often to justify their purchase? For with each purchase comes the use of more resources to make them, the kitchen space needed to store them, the packaging to recycle and finally the cost of recycling the product itself?
Maybe there is merit in looking at what we already have that might serve the function? The wooden spoon, the grill, the ice box etc.
Joy in Enough, part of Green Christian, believes ‘Christians have a key role in modelling a way of life that respects the environment and serves others, finding fulfilment in what we have and not always wanting more.’ Their remit is to ‘offer study materials, talks and stories about current events, movements and activities which offer a vision of the future we want to see. We provide resources for people to decide what they can do, at a personal, community, national and global level, to challenge effectively our current way of living and bring about the changes needed in our economy, and wider society.’
Advice from a bank “do I really need this product?”
Simply spending money on buying stuff is not good for the environment and as damage to the environment, is already and will at present rates increasingly, incur financial costs that will affect us all, it is not good economically either.
Having said that we try to minimise waste, should what we recycle be seen as recycled waste? Flour and oats both come in large paper sacks. The sacks are single use which arguable might seem wasteful but they can be recycled. They are good for collecting all the other paper that goes out for recycling. Margerine comes in plastic tubs – again single use but recyclable.
One reason that our dustbin fills slowly is because we can recycle much of the ‘waste’ that comes into the house. We recycle paper and card, aluminium foil, tins, glass and standard plastics via the Council’s kerb side collection. We take soft plastics to the Coop for recycling, toothpaste tubes to Boots, medical blister packs to Superdrug. There is a recycling bin for small electrical goods at the library and for batteries at Robert Dyas.
Recycling is good and worth doing but it comes with its own consumption of resources and production of emissions. And we know that in reality many things that are labelled as recyclable are not recycled – often because they are not put into the appropriate recycling bin. Greater thought needs to be given by designers and producers to reduce what needs to be recycled and how often.
The aim becomes not consuming more than you need to consume, buying less and ensuring the best and most efficient use of what we do consume.
Green wash is advertising or marketing that makes out that a product is greener/ more environmentally friendly than it actually is. It is an attempt to delude or deceive the consumer.
TerraChoice has identified ‘seven sins of greenwashing’ –
“Hidden Trade-off”: a claim that a product is “green” based on an unreasonably narrow set of attributes without attention to other critical environmental issues.
“No Proof”: a claim that cannot be substantiated by easily accessible information or a reliable third-party certification.
“Vagueness” is a poorly defined or broad claim that the consumer will likely misunderstand its meaning. “All-natural,” for example, is not necessarily “green.”
“Worshipping False Labels”: a claim that, through words or images, gives the impression of a third-party endorsement where none exists.
“Irrelevance”: a claim that may be truthful but unimportant or unhelpful to consumers seeking environmentally preferable products.
“Lesser of Two Evils”: a claim that may be true within the product category, but risks distracting consumers from the more significant environmental impact of the category.
In a world where we already consume too much, I can’t help feeling that any advertising that encourages us to consume more than we need, is greenwashing.
Using the model of a citizen’s assembly, the WWF, the RSPB and National Trust put together The People’s Plan for Nature – a vision for the future of nature, and the actions we must all take to protect and renew it.
The Plan, amongst other things, “…calls on individuals and communities to:
be knowledgable about how nature assets in their areas are supposed to be protected (particularly designated protection sites); take personal responsibility for their own actions within these spaces and be empowered to act around damage to nature where they live.
Change their consumption patterns to support nature-friendly businesses, even if the costs to themselves are higher.’
The Green Tau 