Archive for the ‘Consumerism’ Category
Putting sustainability values ahead of market signals
At the risk of over-simplifying, I see most businesses falling into one of two camps when deciding whether and how to “go green.” I’ll call one the market camp and the other the values camp.
The market camp consists of businesses whose green decisions are driven by whether there is market opportunity or customer demand for green(er) products or services. These businesses tend to be product focused. In other words, if green can sell, then they’ll produce it. Otherwise, forget it. They can’t stay in business producing things few customers want.
Businesses in the values camp decide to go green because they believe it is the right thing to do environmentally and socially. They tend to be operations focused. In other words, green operations are capable of only producing green products and services. If they find themselves to be ahead of mainstream marketplace demand, so be it. Financial success can’t come at the expense of environmental or social damage.
So how might businesses in these two camps react to results of a national survey on green issues recently conducted by an ad agency in Knoxville, Tenn.?
Among other things, the survey found that many people remain confused about what “green” is and the “green market” is far from mature.
(H)alf (49%) of respondents said a company’s environmental record is important in their purchasing decisions. But that number dropped to 21% when consumers were asked if this had actually driven them to choose one product over another. And only 7% could name the product they purchased.
Not only that, the study found that about 26% of Americans (mostly affluent, white, middle-aged males) fall into a demographic called the “Never Greens.” These are skeptics who either “don’t care or are not interested” in sustainable or green products.
The market camp, which represents the majority of businesses, will probably look at this data as reason to become more conservative in deciding whether or how fast to go green. When so few buying decisions appear to be made on the basis of a company’s environmental record and such a large percentage of Americans couldn’t care less about green products, where’s the market or financial incentive to produce green?
I’d wager the values camp will remain undaunted by these findings. They will continue business as usual because the option of not being green doesn’t exist for them. They will focus on the minority of potential customers who today make buying decisions based on the environmental practices of a company and the sustainability of their products and services. And they will do what they can to educate others about the importance of sustainable consumption habits.
So do you and your organization fall into one of these camps, or someplace in between? For me, a perfect world consists only of the values camp, although as a business owner and marketer I certainly understand the importance of listening to the market. Unfortunately, the market has failed to send adequate signals to businesses to behave and produce sustainably. As a result, we’ve depended far too long on fossil fuels, depleted far too much of the earth’s resources and produced far too many good and services for a minority of affluent humans who already have too much.
As the survey reveals, most people aren’t guided by sustainability principles in their buying habits. Businesses in the values camp don’t take that as a signal to relax. They see it as a reason to re-double their commitment to sustainability. And that gives me hope.
Tags: buying habits, go green, green issues, green market, Sustainability, The Never Greens
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There’s no consuming our way to green
I find it difficult to avoid the topic of Wal-Mart when speaking of sustainability and marketing. The company came up again today at a breakfast presentation by two professors of business from the University of Portland, sponsored by the Oregon Natural Step Network. And once again I find myself bristling at the notion of Wal-Mart playing any part in the ultimate sustainability solutions for our planet.
Tags: BALLE, consumption, de-materialize, green, Juliet Schor, Marketing, Natural Step Network, Sustainability, the good life, Wal-Mart, Walmart
Posted in Business & Economics, Consumerism, Marketing, Oregon, Sustainability | No Comments »
Shopping ’til we drop on Earth Day
Earth Day is nearly here. Just in time for retailers and producers to stoke the consumption of all things green and revive their flagging fortunes in today’s tough sales environment. Advertising Age (reg. required) asks, “Is Earth Day the New Christmas?”:
As April 22 approaches, marketers of all stripes are bombarding consumers with green promotions and products designed to get them to buy more products — some eco-friendly, some not so much. And while that message seems to contrast with the event’s intent, the oxymoron seems to have been lost on marketers jumping on the Earth Day bandwagon in record numbers. This year it seems that just about everyone has found a way to attach themselves to what is fast becoming a marketing holiday that barely resembles the grass-roots event founded in 1970.
Leave it to American commerce to dress up consumerism on a day that is meant to remind us of the harmful effects of excessive and inequitable consumption. If business and industry wanted to make a sustainability statement, they would close up shop on Earth Day and challenge us to buy less and give more. Oh wait, isn’t that what Christmas is supposed to be about?
Tags: Advertising Age, Christmas, Consumerism, Earth Day
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Is a green Wal-Mart good enough?
By now you’re probably aware of Wal-Mart’s efforts to green its business practices and its image. If you haven’t, you probably will soon. The company that a business professor I recently met called the 13th largest economy in the world has launched an advertising onslaught tied to Earth Month. According to Wal-Mart’s news release, its national advertising campaign includes print, television, radio and online ads and a 16-page insert in May issues of several consumer magazines. Brandweek says the company calls it “the most comprehensive environmental sustainability campaign” in its history.
No less of an environmentalist than Paul Hawken, speaking at his book-tour event in Portland last year, said Wal-Mart was indeed serious and sincere about sustainability. The professor I mentioned supports Hawken’s assessment. She is among a group of academics taking part in Wal-Mart’s green initiatives and is a regular visitor to Wal-Mart’s home in Bentonville, Ark. The company’s new-found green zeal is apparent on its website:
Wal-Mart’s environmental goals are simple and straightforward: to be supplied 100 percent by renewable energy; to create zero waste; and to sell products that sustain our natural resources and the environment.
What to make of all this? This is Wal-Mart we’re talking about, the company so many, including me, have good reasons to despise. I’m on the board of a Portland nonprofit that actively supports locally owned, independent businesses and encourages people within our community to do the same. This in the face of out-of-town big-box retailers — Wal-Mart being the poster child — that have decimated so many local independent businesses and left their communities poorer for it.
Still, if Wal-Mart — given its staggering size — is successful in using only renewable energy, producing zero waste and greening its supply chain and the products it sells, it would have an enormously positive impact on the global environment. Or so it would seem.
Something, however, doesn’t add up for me. Green or no, Wal-Mart hasn’t backed off using low prices to beat its competition (including the Mom & Pops in your town). The message it’s sending is you can have it all. “Save Money. Live Better.” — it’s new slogan promises. Wal-Mart will drive its suppliers to go greener, but it will still expect the lowest possible prices from them. That protects its profit margins and enables its customers (in theory) to save money. But someone or something has to pay for Wal-Mart’s margins and our low prices — as has always been the case.
What do you think? If Wal-Mart achieves its environmental sustainability goals, will it have earned your admiration, maybe even turned you into a customer? Is going green enough? Or do you, like me, view sustainability as far more than going green? What about the matters of social and economic equity? Wal-Mart’s lower prices and business practices mean lower wages, loss of independent businesses and the community diversity they bring and the leakage of dollars out of local communities and into the coffers of Wal-Mart headquarters. Should we just chalk that up to the free market doing its thing?
Tags: Brandweek, Earth Month, economic leakage, equity, Paul Hawken, Sustainability, Wal-Mart
Posted in Business & Economics, Consumerism, Marketing, Sustainability | 1 Comment »
Spread of fashion undermines sustainability
One of America’s foremost critics of our consuming ways is Juliet Schor, a professor of sociology at Boston College. I had the pleasure of hearing her speak this week in Portland.
Among the many observations that jumped out at me in her lecture was what she called “the aesthetization of American life.” Not sure that’s a word, but the point is fast-changing fashion, long the staple of the apparel industry, is now central to the selling of many retail products. In recent years, furniture, cellphone, home electronics and other manufacturers have joined clothing makers in emphasizing the design — or aesthetic appeal — of their products. A New York Times piece yesterday, appropriately headlined “Hoping to Make Phone Buyers Flip,” helped make Schor’s point:
Like fashion or entertainment, the cellphone industry is increasingly hit-driven, and new models that do not fly off the shelves within weeks of their debut are considered duds.
I like attractive, well-designed products as much as the next person. However, when it becomes industry’s prevailing practice to change product designs with the season and encourage us to discard perfectly good items because they are no longer “fashionable,” then we have a problem. Making more of the products we buy fashion statements only encourages us to purchase more. This may bolster the financial bottom lines of producers and retailers. But it puts the world’s environmental bottom line further in the red.
To illustrate her point, Schor projected a graph from the World Wildlife Foundation’s Living Planet Report 2006. You can access the report here. According to the WWF:
The Living Planet Report 2006 confirms that we are using the planet’s resources faster than they can be renewed — the latest data available (for 2003) indicate that humanity’s Ecological Footprint, our impact on the planet, has more than tripled since 1961. Our footprint now exceeds the world’s ability to regenerate by about 25 per cent…This global trend suggests we are degrading natural ecosystems at a rate unprecedented in human history…Effectively, the Earth’s regenerative capacity can no longer keep up with demand — people are turning resources into waste faster than nature can turn waste into resources.
WWF offers several alternatives to our unsustainable (and potentially catastrophic) “business as usual” course of human development. If you’re wondering what you can do, start by examining your consumption choices. Resist the urge to stay at fashion’s leading edge, no matter the product. Buy less stuff. When you do make purchases, reward producers and retailers who embrace sustainability.
And if it’s aesthetics you value, ask yourself this: What better designer than Mother Nature?
Tags: aesthetization, consumption, Ecological Footprint, Juliet Schor, Living Planet Report, Sustainability
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Consuming our way out of poverty?
An economist and writer at the Federal Reserve Bank in Dallas tell us household consumption — not income — is the best measurement of “financial well-being.” The incomes of the top 20 percent of US households may be 15 times greater than the bottom 20 percent, but the top group’s consumer spending is only four times greater than the bottom group’s. And on a per person basis, the richest household only outspends the poorest by 2.1. to 1 (because richer households are larger on average). Writing in the Sunday New York Times, the bankers explain:
To understand why consumption is a better guideline of economic prosperity than income, it helps to consider how our lives have changed. Nearly all American families now have refrigerators, stoves, color TVs, telephones and radios. Air-conditioners, cars, VCRs or DVD players, microwave ovens, washing machines, clothes dryers and cellphones have reached more than 80 percent of households.
So there you have it. Because nearly all of the poorest households have all or most of the “conveniences we take for granted,” they really aren’t that poor. In fact, the bankers tell us, “the abstract, income-based way in which we measure the so-called poverty rate no longer applies to our society.” By their definition, the truly poor are those who don’t have the modern conveniences nearly everyone else has. In which case, that odd millionaire couple that opts out of a consumerist lifestyle would be poor. They say no to the so-called conveniences because they don’t want to add to the human and ecological toll our consumer economy extracts.
The bankers praise “a capitalist system that has for generations been lifting American living standards.” Yes, if you define standard of living by material things. We certainly do have more material things in the average rich and poor households. And I suppose that means all of us — rich and poor — are happier than generations before us? And Earth has infinite capacity to lift the world’s material living standards for generations to come? Just wondering.
Tags: economic prosperity, Federal Reserve Bank, household consumption, New York Times, poverty, standard of living
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