This article on washing appeared recently in the Guardian. It seems relevant to our seminar on Monday (22nd November) as it describes the development of a new (extremely niche) social practice of washing and showering less.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/nov/02/give-up-washing-showering
Sunday, 21 November 2010
Monday, 25 October 2010
Why do we consume and how can we change?
I found the Jackson, Jager & Stagl (2004) chapter from the book The Ecological Economics of Consumption useful in structuring my thinking about social psychological theories of why we consume as we do. The authors identify 3 distinct perspectives for understanding human needs.
Firstly there is the mainstream economic model, based upon Rational Choice Theory, which assumes that the needs of consumers are unending, linked to the assumption that growth is good and should continue. Furthermore, attempts to distinguish between needs, wants and preferences are unimportant in the marketplace. Though arguably the basis for most social marketing , this model can be critiqued not only from an ecological perspective - even if consumer 'needs' are infinite the planet most definitely is not - but also for its explanatory power - if needs are inseparable from wants and preferences, then why does consumption vary so much between different social contexts?
The second perspective gives the concept of 'needs' an important structural role in understanding well-being, represented by the work of psychologists like Maslow and Max-Neef, who we have looked at in lectures. This perspective offers a direct critique of the mainstream economic model from ecological and sociological standpoints, leading to the belief that it would be possible for us to live better lives by consuming less (the so-called 'double dividend'). Maslow's hierarchy of needs (1954) suggests that we have different levels of needs, each of which needs to be fulfilled before we start to perceive higher needs. Food and shelter are basic human needs, followed by the need for safety and security. The third tier is the human need for love and belonging, followed by needs for self-esteem and the respect of others. At the top of the pyramid are our self-actualisation needs for things like morality and creativity. The main criticism of this hierarchy is that it assumes that people in situations of poverty, where their basic needs for shelter and food are not met, will therefore not require that their higher 'needs' for love and belonging, or even self-actualisation needs to protect the environment around them, to be met. Furthermore, this is really only a model of individual needs satisfaction at the expense of society, culture and the environment. Max-Neef's (1991) matrix of needs arguably better captures the complexity of human needs. He posits that there are nine needs: subsistence; protection; affection; understanding; participation; creation; leisure; identity; and freedom. And each of these needs has to be met through being, having, doing and interacting. The consumption of economic goods could therefore satisfy multiple needs dependent upon context.
The third perspective, often asserted by mind-bending structuralist and post-structuralist thinkers, holds that the needs-based approach of Maslow and Max-Neef is rhetorical, naive and moralistic. We consume good not only to meet material needs, but also because they play vital social roles in our lives, for example as an identity statement. Instead of writing this off as 'consumerism', we should perhaps accept the importance of symbolic consumption for finding meaning in our lives and for the creation of cultural capital, which enhances social resilience. These meanings are constantly negotiated and renegotiated, however such processes are outside of the control of any individual consumer. By attempting to distinguish between needs and desires in the needs-based approach we perhaps come to ethically dubious conclusions, as “no one person is in a position to identify with authority what the needs of any other person might be”(Jackson et al, 2004: 101). I think this final perspective shows how strategies of self-righteous environmentalists, who pride themselves on their self-denial and lack of material needs, may not be successful in reaching the mainstream. This final perspective does present a problem, however, as if any intervention in consumption is moralistic, what can be done about the very real environmental and social pathologies caused by consumption?
Here I find Csikszentmihalyi's (2006) article from the Earthscan Sustainable Consumption Reader useful. Reflecting a needs-based perspective, the author asserts that we have not only existential needs, as identified by Maslow and Max-Neef, but also experiential needs to always be conscious, active, and doing. This helps to explain why we often end up wandering aimlessly around the shops or mindlessly channel surfing on the TV. Csikszentmihalyi also suggests that we should carefully consider the costs and benefits of our consumption of different goods, balancing the entropy (the breaking down of natural products and processes) caused, against the fulfilment of existential and experiential needs. This would lead us to reinvent consumption to prioritise the goods which use the least energy for the needs which they fulfil; here the author envisages an economy based upon the workers like craftspeople, teachers, gardeners, poets, dancers and artists, who produce fulfilling yet low energy goods. This is also linked to the idea that the consumption of material goods only improves well-being up to a point. Therefore we can consume goods which add symbolic meaning to our lives, but only up to the point where the ecological and social costs of the goods start to outweigh their ability to fulfil our 'needs'.
Firstly there is the mainstream economic model, based upon Rational Choice Theory, which assumes that the needs of consumers are unending, linked to the assumption that growth is good and should continue. Furthermore, attempts to distinguish between needs, wants and preferences are unimportant in the marketplace. Though arguably the basis for most social marketing , this model can be critiqued not only from an ecological perspective - even if consumer 'needs' are infinite the planet most definitely is not - but also for its explanatory power - if needs are inseparable from wants and preferences, then why does consumption vary so much between different social contexts?
The second perspective gives the concept of 'needs' an important structural role in understanding well-being, represented by the work of psychologists like Maslow and Max-Neef, who we have looked at in lectures. This perspective offers a direct critique of the mainstream economic model from ecological and sociological standpoints, leading to the belief that it would be possible for us to live better lives by consuming less (the so-called 'double dividend'). Maslow's hierarchy of needs (1954) suggests that we have different levels of needs, each of which needs to be fulfilled before we start to perceive higher needs. Food and shelter are basic human needs, followed by the need for safety and security. The third tier is the human need for love and belonging, followed by needs for self-esteem and the respect of others. At the top of the pyramid are our self-actualisation needs for things like morality and creativity. The main criticism of this hierarchy is that it assumes that people in situations of poverty, where their basic needs for shelter and food are not met, will therefore not require that their higher 'needs' for love and belonging, or even self-actualisation needs to protect the environment around them, to be met. Furthermore, this is really only a model of individual needs satisfaction at the expense of society, culture and the environment. Max-Neef's (1991) matrix of needs arguably better captures the complexity of human needs. He posits that there are nine needs: subsistence; protection; affection; understanding; participation; creation; leisure; identity; and freedom. And each of these needs has to be met through being, having, doing and interacting. The consumption of economic goods could therefore satisfy multiple needs dependent upon context.
The third perspective, often asserted by mind-bending structuralist and post-structuralist thinkers, holds that the needs-based approach of Maslow and Max-Neef is rhetorical, naive and moralistic. We consume good not only to meet material needs, but also because they play vital social roles in our lives, for example as an identity statement. Instead of writing this off as 'consumerism', we should perhaps accept the importance of symbolic consumption for finding meaning in our lives and for the creation of cultural capital, which enhances social resilience. These meanings are constantly negotiated and renegotiated, however such processes are outside of the control of any individual consumer. By attempting to distinguish between needs and desires in the needs-based approach we perhaps come to ethically dubious conclusions, as “no one person is in a position to identify with authority what the needs of any other person might be”(Jackson et al, 2004: 101). I think this final perspective shows how strategies of self-righteous environmentalists, who pride themselves on their self-denial and lack of material needs, may not be successful in reaching the mainstream. This final perspective does present a problem, however, as if any intervention in consumption is moralistic, what can be done about the very real environmental and social pathologies caused by consumption?
Here I find Csikszentmihalyi's (2006) article from the Earthscan Sustainable Consumption Reader useful. Reflecting a needs-based perspective, the author asserts that we have not only existential needs, as identified by Maslow and Max-Neef, but also experiential needs to always be conscious, active, and doing. This helps to explain why we often end up wandering aimlessly around the shops or mindlessly channel surfing on the TV. Csikszentmihalyi also suggests that we should carefully consider the costs and benefits of our consumption of different goods, balancing the entropy (the breaking down of natural products and processes) caused, against the fulfilment of existential and experiential needs. This would lead us to reinvent consumption to prioritise the goods which use the least energy for the needs which they fulfil; here the author envisages an economy based upon the workers like craftspeople, teachers, gardeners, poets, dancers and artists, who produce fulfilling yet low energy goods. This is also linked to the idea that the consumption of material goods only improves well-being up to a point. Therefore we can consume goods which add symbolic meaning to our lives, but only up to the point where the ecological and social costs of the goods start to outweigh their ability to fulfil our 'needs'.
Thursday, 14 October 2010
Happy Planet Index
This week I calculated my Happy Planet Index (HPI) to work out the ecological efficiency with which I achieve well-being in my life, calculated by dividing by dividing the total of various happiness, well-being and life-expectancy measures by my ecological footprint (see http://www.happyplanetindex.org/). Despite several valid criticisms of the HPI, I still feel the measure improves greatly on indicators such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP); reflecting the most important aspects of my life, not wealth but instead my relationships with family and friends, my health, and my perceived power to "make a difference". And furthermore, the HPI assesses these qualities against my impact on the planet. I consider myself to be a very happy person, but my HPI would not be high if I had not also taken steps to reduce my ecological footprint.
There are certainly problems with trying to put a number or value on intangible and subjective qualities like happiness. However, the HPI at least tries to take into account several aspects of happiness, from a person's recent mood, to her general life satisfaction, to her relationships and finally her self-esteem and her perceived power to "make a difference". Furthermore, the HPI is arguably no more subjective than more traditional measures like GDP. A person cannot expect to be happy every day - and indeed this should not be a government policy objective; however, in my ideal society when a person is not happy she should still have the power to do something about it and she should also have a support network of family and friends and/or professionals around her to help.
There is a broader problem here, in that no single indicator is able to capture the complexity of what is required to have a "good" life or a "prosperous" society; and these concepts will mean different things to different people in different societies. Focusing on one number inevitable narrows one's vision, blinding policy-makers and publics to other factors, or perhaps unfairly prioritising "goods" like self-esteem over harder to measure "goods" like power to influence decision-making. At the same time, if governments were to take the well-being and happiness of their citizens seriously within policy, which I believe they should, they need a yardstick or indicator to evaluate the success of their policies so that they can be held accountable. It seems to me that part of the problem at the moment is a simplistic reliance on the part of governments on only a few indicators, instead of any attempt to see the wider picture; therefore the use of numerical indicators in itself should not be completely thrown out.
On one level it seems ridiculous for governments to be concocting policies to induce happiness. After all, you can't legislate for love, fantastic friends, breathtaking scenery, sporting achievements or many other things that make us truly happy. However, government policies which support child care, reduce working hours, ensure the quality of working environments, promote green spaces, or encourage volunteering, could be seen as enabling ordinary people to live their lives in ways that make them happier, by reducing money worries and work stress, and giving people more time to spend on important relationships.
Going back to my first post which distinguishes between mainstream and alternative perspectives on sustainable consumption, I worry that my policy suggestions so far have erred too much on the side of the mainstream approach. Standing back to imagine a completely different society, organised around the twin aims of increasing public well-being and reducing the ecological impact I am forced to question many taken-for-granted aspects of the world as it is. Why does society expect people to work most of their waking hours in order to earn the money to buy goods, which (I venture) in most cases they do not need and do not make them any happier? Why are the highest status individuals in society those who earn and own the most, rather than those who look after the welfare of other humans and the environment the most? Why do we consider school subjects like Maths and English more important than teaching children how to be happy or how to live within ecological limits?
There are certainly problems with trying to put a number or value on intangible and subjective qualities like happiness. However, the HPI at least tries to take into account several aspects of happiness, from a person's recent mood, to her general life satisfaction, to her relationships and finally her self-esteem and her perceived power to "make a difference". Furthermore, the HPI is arguably no more subjective than more traditional measures like GDP. A person cannot expect to be happy every day - and indeed this should not be a government policy objective; however, in my ideal society when a person is not happy she should still have the power to do something about it and she should also have a support network of family and friends and/or professionals around her to help.
There is a broader problem here, in that no single indicator is able to capture the complexity of what is required to have a "good" life or a "prosperous" society; and these concepts will mean different things to different people in different societies. Focusing on one number inevitable narrows one's vision, blinding policy-makers and publics to other factors, or perhaps unfairly prioritising "goods" like self-esteem over harder to measure "goods" like power to influence decision-making. At the same time, if governments were to take the well-being and happiness of their citizens seriously within policy, which I believe they should, they need a yardstick or indicator to evaluate the success of their policies so that they can be held accountable. It seems to me that part of the problem at the moment is a simplistic reliance on the part of governments on only a few indicators, instead of any attempt to see the wider picture; therefore the use of numerical indicators in itself should not be completely thrown out.
On one level it seems ridiculous for governments to be concocting policies to induce happiness. After all, you can't legislate for love, fantastic friends, breathtaking scenery, sporting achievements or many other things that make us truly happy. However, government policies which support child care, reduce working hours, ensure the quality of working environments, promote green spaces, or encourage volunteering, could be seen as enabling ordinary people to live their lives in ways that make them happier, by reducing money worries and work stress, and giving people more time to spend on important relationships.
Going back to my first post which distinguishes between mainstream and alternative perspectives on sustainable consumption, I worry that my policy suggestions so far have erred too much on the side of the mainstream approach. Standing back to imagine a completely different society, organised around the twin aims of increasing public well-being and reducing the ecological impact I am forced to question many taken-for-granted aspects of the world as it is. Why does society expect people to work most of their waking hours in order to earn the money to buy goods, which (I venture) in most cases they do not need and do not make them any happier? Why are the highest status individuals in society those who earn and own the most, rather than those who look after the welfare of other humans and the environment the most? Why do we consider school subjects like Maths and English more important than teaching children how to be happy or how to live within ecological limits?
Monday, 11 October 2010
Carbon Footprinting
Last week we all calculated our 'carbon footprints': that is the number of tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions that we are personally responsible for per year. The estimates of my footprint varied between 5.17 tonnes and 8,08 tonnes depending upon which calculator I used (I would recommend http://footprint.wwf.org.uk). This would seem to be quite a variation, bearing in mind that I was entering very similar data about my lifestyle into each calculator. This inaccuracy is one of the main criticisms of carbon calculators (see Padgett et al, 2008, 'a comparison of carbon calculators), and it results from the different estimates and assumptions calculators make about externalities - for example, the emissions resulting from the creation and transport of the goods we buy - and about our lifestyles - for example, how we heat our houses. The user of a carbon calculator is also forced to make many estimates and approximations, and I may have been hundreds of miles out in my estimates of how far I have travelled by bus and by car over the last 12 months.
But does this inaccuracy and lack of transparency really matter? I personally found the exercise useful as it forced me to examine each aspect of my life, from how I heat my house to my shopping habits, separately and consider the carbon dioxide emissions each activity caused. Whether my actual footprint is 5.17 or 8.08 tonnes, it is simply too big (it is thought that around 3 tonnes would be equitable and sustainable). If everybody in the world lived like me, we would need at least 1.5 planets to cope with it. Furthermore, it is just as difficult to quantify any savings that I could make on my carbon footprint, for example by only buying local produce or cycling more; therefore the most important thing is not the exact figures, rather it is the principle that I personally produce too much carbon dioxide. Thus calculating my carbon footprint has spurred me into action. Some carbon calculators also offered tips in how I could reduce my footprint. It wasn't that I hadn't heard most of this advice before, but the act of calculating my own carbon footprint personalised the problem by highlighting my individual contribution.
Of course, carbon footprints are not the be all and end all; it would be better for me to try to calculate a more holistic ecological footprint, which considers other ecological impacts such as water pollution or habitat destruction. And what about the social impact of my lifestyle? The danger with focusing too much on carbon footprints is that we don't consider the tricky trade-offs between buying the Fairtrade bananas that have been air-freighted from half-way around the world, or buying the tomatoes which have been grown locally in a heated greenhouse, or buying the organic apples freighted from eastern Europe. Perhaps carbon footprints also unfairly place too much emphasis on the individual, who in reality is constrained by factors like infrastructure and social context, and on whose behalf the government contributes carbon dioxide emissions. Therefore carbon footprints could depoliticise the issue of carbon dioxide emissions and environmental degradation by simply presenting it in an instrumental and technical manner which doesn't examine the underlying reasons why we live as we do.
But does this inaccuracy and lack of transparency really matter? I personally found the exercise useful as it forced me to examine each aspect of my life, from how I heat my house to my shopping habits, separately and consider the carbon dioxide emissions each activity caused. Whether my actual footprint is 5.17 or 8.08 tonnes, it is simply too big (it is thought that around 3 tonnes would be equitable and sustainable). If everybody in the world lived like me, we would need at least 1.5 planets to cope with it. Furthermore, it is just as difficult to quantify any savings that I could make on my carbon footprint, for example by only buying local produce or cycling more; therefore the most important thing is not the exact figures, rather it is the principle that I personally produce too much carbon dioxide. Thus calculating my carbon footprint has spurred me into action. Some carbon calculators also offered tips in how I could reduce my footprint. It wasn't that I hadn't heard most of this advice before, but the act of calculating my own carbon footprint personalised the problem by highlighting my individual contribution.
Of course, carbon footprints are not the be all and end all; it would be better for me to try to calculate a more holistic ecological footprint, which considers other ecological impacts such as water pollution or habitat destruction. And what about the social impact of my lifestyle? The danger with focusing too much on carbon footprints is that we don't consider the tricky trade-offs between buying the Fairtrade bananas that have been air-freighted from half-way around the world, or buying the tomatoes which have been grown locally in a heated greenhouse, or buying the organic apples freighted from eastern Europe. Perhaps carbon footprints also unfairly place too much emphasis on the individual, who in reality is constrained by factors like infrastructure and social context, and on whose behalf the government contributes carbon dioxide emissions. Therefore carbon footprints could depoliticise the issue of carbon dioxide emissions and environmental degradation by simply presenting it in an instrumental and technical manner which doesn't examine the underlying reasons why we live as we do.
Wednesday, 6 October 2010
Introduction/ Perspectives on Sustainable Consumption
The purpose of this blog is primarily for me to reflect on the lectures and seminars given in my sustainable consumption module. This is part of a collaborative learning process with the rest of my classmates, but also to help facilitate my own learning by forcing me to organise my thoughts on these complex and contested issues.
So what is ‘Sustainable Consumption’ and is it even possible? Academics tend to distinguish between mainstream and alternative sustainable consumption. The mainstream perspective, usually held by policy-makers and businesses, assumes that sustainability – environmental, social and economic – can be achieved through small and incremental changes to the current social and economic order. The alternative perspective holds that far more radical changes are needed to achieve sustainability. In reality this can be conceived of as a spectrum from mainstream to radical, with many competing perspectives. I would place myself towards the more radical end of the spectrum, as I believe that the current ecological, social, economic, psychological… (I could go on) crisis presents more serious challenges than a few green taxes, ethical consumer goods and a bit of carbon off-setting can address. I don’t see problems like climate change as mere setbacks which need to be quickly dealt with in order for us to continue with the status quo; rather such problems are symptoms of a wider crisis that shows that our current system is fundamentally failing. Therefore the mainstream model of sustainable consumption is neither effective nor desirable.
I feel I ought to say that despite my dissatisfaction with the world as it is, I remain optimistic about the future. I believe a positive transformation towards a fairer, greener and happier system is possible, and there are already signs all around - from transition towns, to community housing projects, to local currencies – that this change has already begun.
Over the coming weeks I'll try to get down to the nitty gritty, beyond my utopian ramblings, to consider how sustainable consumption might work in practice. I am conscious already of a disparity between my ideals and the reality of the way I live my life. Although I try to shop ethically and live green, I know I'm still not doing enough. I'm letting my parents take me on holiday to Japan this Easter, despite the fact I know that flying is one of the worst activities possible for the planet. I still buy lots of things I don't really need, and I'm a bit scared of my bike. This is subject that I will probably come back to a lot in this blog.
Thanks for reading. Constructive criticism, interesting links and random comments are always welcome.
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