GREEN CONSUMERISM

Alternative terms are ethical consumption,  ethical purchasing,  moral purchasing,  ethical sourcing,  ethical shopping

FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE CONSUMER:

Green consumerism can be described as either a highly democratic strategy to save the planet or exploitative marketing, depending on who you are talking to. As a strategy to save the planet it confronts the mass of consumers in industrialized countries and in effect says: "it’s up to you". Consumer demand has got us into the current mess, now it has to get us out again. Consumers must inform themselves about major environmental problems and then, by being cross-informed through product labeling, they should only select environmentally benign products -- and green life-styles to match their new consumption tastes. 

The idea is that when awareness of environmental problems penetrates deeply enough into the community consciousness the purchasing power of the mass market will force all manufacturers to green both their products and their manufacturing processes -- on pain of being rejected in the market-place by green-leaning consumers. If all goes according to plan only those companies which adapt to the demand for greenness will survive

Ethical consumerism is the intentional purchase of products and services that the customer considers to be made ethically. This may mean with minimal harm to or exploitation of humans, animals and/or the natural environment. Ethical consumerism is practiced through 'positive buying' in that ethical products are favored, or 'moral boycott', that is negative purchasing and company-based purchasing

The first point of view sees the environmental crisis as being the result of the quality of past mass consumption whereas the second view sees it as being caused by, not only the quality, but the volume of consumption as well. For the skeptic, green consumerism might even increase environmental damage by encouraging the consumption of new types of products under the misconception that they are environmentally benign.even more jaded `environmental rationalist' might respond to the call for green consumerism with the retort that, `there's no such thing as a green lunch'

The Roots of Green Consumerism

Green buyers, of course, have been around for a long time, but until recently they were only a discriminating few. The birth of the modern green consumer movement is usually dated at around the time the newly-released Brundtland Report was generating heightened awareness of the global ecological crisis. In 1987 a British company called The Body Shop won the UK "Company of the Year" Business Enterprise Awards.[2] The Body Shop was then "riding high on a wave of green consumerism" as an outlet for "cruelty-free, minimally packaged, natural ingredient soaps"[3]. It was expanding at the rate of 20 new outlets a year and its extraordinary success helped to inspire several authors to quickly assemble popular guides to both green economics and green consuming. Amongst the most successful were the best-selling paperbacks The Green Consumers Guide [4] and Blueprint For A Green Planet. [5] (It was around this time that Margaret Thatcher declared herself green.) Green discrimination by consumers was thereafter quickly established as an essential ingredient of the business culture's plan to save the planet. 

1. Cleaning agents, with refills 

2. Metal kitchen utensils: tongs, ice cream scoop 

3. Glass containers for storage 

4. Mild detergent 

5. Waxed food wrap -- instead of plastic 

6. Metal garbage bin, bucket, dustpan 

7. Straw broom -- not plastic 

8. Natural fiber doormat 

9. Pure washing powder, pure antiseptic 

SOME PRODUCTS WHICH CAN SAVE THE WORLD, FROM MORE DAMAGE

10. Tile cleaning; use steel wool with bicarb 

11. Pump action carpet cleaners 

12. Plain toilet paper, tissues -- not dyed 

13. Roll-on deodorants -- instead of aerosol 

14. Wooden coat-hangers -- better than plastic 

15. Simply packaged stationary 

16. Metal razor 

17. Shave stick -- not aerosol shave cream 

18. Toothpaste in tube -- instead of pump pack 

factsof the green consumerism

-"Shopping with a conscience. Do you really want to give your money to companies that pollute, that make excessive profits, that experiment on animals, that mistreat their employees?-Green consumerism creates a balance between the expectations of consumer behavior and businesses' profit motives

Spending as morality

-Certain trust criteria, e.g. creditworthiness or implied warranty, are considered to be part of any purchasing or sourcing decision. However, these terms refer to broader systems of guidance that would, ideally, cause any purchasing decision to disqualify offered products or services based on non-price criteria that do not affect the functional, but rather moral, liabilities of the entire production process-moral criteria are part of a much broader shift away from commodity markets towards a deeper service economy where all activities, from growing to harvesting to processing to delivery, are considered part of the value chain and for which consumers are "responsible".

Conscious consuming-Conscious Consuming is a social movement that based around increased awareness of the impact of purchasing decisions on the environment and the consumers health and life in general. It is also concerned with the effects of media and advertising on consumers

-Conscious consuming has its roots in voluntary simplicity, in which people re-evaluate their work-life balance in order to spend more of their time and money on the things that matter to them. As people work less, there is more time for connecting with family and friends, volunteerism, hobbies, and community service.

Green Consumers? Or Conning Unassuming Greens?

-there are consumer products which are falsely promoted as being green. -can we continue to consume goods at the present rate, even if we move to more environmentally acceptable products, and expect to stave off the impending environmental crisis?

four pitfalls for the consumer trying to buy green.The first pitfall is the "Bit-Less-Trap. This is best illustrated by the CFC-free aerosol, which is marketed as environmentally-friendly, but which may contain other gases which threaten health or continue to damage the ozone layer. It is a bit less harmful than its predecessor, but still not sound. Unleaded petrol is another example.

-The second pitfall is identified as the `Green Image Game'. A statement directed at marketing executives was cited which advised "By making products sound as if they are good for the environment, manufacturers can attract extra sales from around a third of the population". 

-The third pitfall is ` Niche-marketing'. This is evident when a manufacturer produces one line of products specifically directed towards environmentally-aware consumers but at the same time produces comparable products in the old environmentally-unfriendly mode for the mainstream market.

 

-The fourth pitfall was the `Cradle-to-Grave Trap' which was identified as a concern for the history of the whole product: the resources that are refined to make it, the pollution caused in manufacturing, the energy consumption, both in manufacturing and operation, and the product's life-span and disposal problems. This pitfall is the impossibility for the consumer to find all this out before every purchase. Who is the consumer supposed to ask about it, the sales assistant?

 -The imposition on consumers to make sound judgments on the environmental correctness of the products they buy sometimes in the absence of any relevant information at all, and often under an avalanche of obviously false and misleading claimsSo complicated is the terrain, in fact, that what is becoming known as "green consuming" may prove to be nothing more than a costly diversion from the campaign to save the earth

Business as UsualIt seems that the waning of green fashion, combined with a recession, had driven business back to normal. It was time to rewrite the scenario in which punctilious green consumers were going to dictate environmental terms to the manufacturers. It was now the turn of the advertisers to use their craft to segment the market and ruthlessly exploit residual consumer concerns about environmental matters. Some recent advertisements for cars are good examples of the way some car manufacturers now like to identify their brands with environmental issues. The strategy is to confront new-car buyer resistance, that might be rooted in consumer guilt, with an appeal to environmental responsibility. A SAAB advertisement has a picture of an exhaust pipe with the caption, "A BREATH OF FRESH AIR".]The text of the advertisement claims that "Our cars actually clean the air". It goes on to say that tests have shown that a SAAB's exhaust gases actually contain less hydrocarbon and nitrogen oxide than the surrounding air in London traffic. "In other words, our car's engine removed these pollutants from the environment!" (This is of course ignoring other toxic, carcinogenic and greenhouse emissions like carbon monoxide, benzene and carbon dioxide). Nevertheless, how could a mildly guilt-afflicted yuppie, dreaming of a new status symbol, resist? And even if his friends didn't believe that he only drove it around to clean the air, at least he would know the truth. 

The use of terms such as `environmentally friendly' or `environmentally safe' should be avoided, as few, if any, products could justify a claim that they are totally free of adverse effects. Almost all products have some adverse impact on the environment in relation to their manufacture, packaging, use or disposal. Moreover, these products terms are uninformative and give the consumer little basis for selecting between competing. The use of `green' to describe a product also falls into this category and should be avoided

Conclusion

The peak of mass enthusiasm for green consumerism has clearly passed. The market now seems to be segmented into the majority who tend to resist green marketing and a minority who tend to respond to it. If this is the case then there is little prospect for green consumerism succeeding as a method for solving the environmental crisis. The plan originally called for the mass consumer market to demand a complete restructuring of manufacturing along environmentally sound lines. A minority of consumers can never be expected to achieve this. 

There are a number of conclusions that can now be drawn. The first is that the skeptics appear to have been right. The desire of competing manufacturers to gain advantage in the market apparently caused them to ruthlessly exploit the embryonic green conscience of consumers. This in turn soon led to widespread consumer skepticism and buyer resistance. But what does this say of the minority of consumers who still respond to green messages? Are they the biggest fools of the lot or are they the morally sound faithful few who have been let down by the majority? And what about the mainstream environment organizations? If green consumerism is now a failed approach to the environmental crisis why are they directly involving themselves in the consumer market? Is it just to exploit the fools? It certainly looks that way when they can even be observed using marketing techniques that appear to breach the Trade Practices Commission guidelines. 

Perhaps one of the most disturbing aspects of green marketing is the flow of evidence indicating that some of the supposed green alternative products might do more damage than the ones they replaced. A case in point is "the mysterious stinking foam that has plagued the Adriatic for four years. This year Italian scientists think they have found the culprit: phosphate-free detergents that were supposed to protect the environment". It seems the zeolites and polycarboxylic acids added to `green' detergents cause even more environmental havoc than the old ungreen phosphate-containing detergents. 

Perhaps the final updated statement about green consumerism is subliminally contained in a recent press advertisement for MasterCard. A picture of the earth-in-space is prominently featured with consumer goods like running shoes and a mobile phone melted onto the continents, and completely covering them. The headline reads "MasterCard introduces Master Values. A whole world of savings." The message seems to be `Junk the planet; we've got some serious shopping to do.'