Spend to Save
You are few (I know I check the stats) but I like to think of you as discerning. A minority of people share our deep interest in environmental and social issues and fewer still in the relationship between companies and those subjects. If we are indeed a minority it seems we are a growing one. The question of what happens when sustainability meets consumerism is interesting and beginning to be put to the test. There is an explosion of marketing effort directed at consumers to convince them of the environmental benefits of everything from laptops to smoothies. This is because market research is once again saying that the consumer is motivated by green issues (yes it happened at least twice before). The so called ethical or green shopper is back and this time she or he means business.According to an American Express survey of its most affluent customers, The Centurion Luxury Living Index, high earners are seeking to recreate the classic 70’s TV sitcom The Good Life. (Younger and non-British readers need only know that a husband and wife living in the suburbs had ridicule heaped upon them weekly for growing their own vegetables, fuelling the car with cooking oil and riding bicycles.)
Apparently the wealthy are displaying their conscience in their purchasing habits and life-styles. So can we really spend our way out of the environmental crisis? As I mentioned in my last blog, there are some significant champions of green consumer power. Terry Leahy of Tesco to name one.
I’m less sure. For one thing, the wealthier you are the more environmental impact you tend to have. I reckon that a person’s carbon footprint is roughly proportional to their income (assuming they spend it). The same goes for their waste volume. OK, there comes a point when even the super rich can’t consume any more and are forced to leave it in the bank, but up to that very high point, Sage’s Law, applies. Income and impact are in proportion.
So wealthy customers are buying organic vegetables and talking about allotments. But are we really to believe people too busy to raise their own kids or do their own laundry are about to dematerialise in droves?
Token greenness is easy when you are wealthy. It’s no sacrifice to buy organic, install solar panels or take an eco-break in the Amazon. But it’s the absolute footprint that counts, and the wealthy make a bigger one than the poor. That’s why Al Gore was embarrassed shortly after The Inconvenient Truth was released. His sixteen room mansion consumes a lot of power.
The challenge is to square man’s desire for possessions and experiences, with the physical limits of the planet to supply those. If we make each activity a little less impactful, but continue to demand more, faster, bigger, then the net impact will continue upwards and be unsustainable. Add to this population growth and rapid economic development in heavily populated regions and we have cause to be worried. There is precious little evidence that limits to consumption have been reached, even in the luxury West, only limits to supporting that consumption. Marketing and some instinctive consumption gene, just drives us to get more stuff. Try standing in the middle of Top Shop or Primark on a Saturday morning and thinking about sustainable consumption as hordes of girls grab cheap fashion from the rails and clutch it to them on route to the fitting rooms. I’ve done it – then flashed my credit card for my daughter.
Next week I will be entering one of the high temples of consumerism, the Cannes Lions Advertising Festival, where I have kindly been invited by WPP branding agency G2 to participate in a panel discussion. The main event at the festival is the screening of advertisements (presumably now in all media) to select the award winners in various product categories. Those most effective at shifting products, winning market share and raising brand awareness will be honoured. If I can find evidence of sustainability there, things may truly be changing.
G2 has bravely dedicated its session at the conference to Sustainability and the Shopper. One of the topics we will discuss is: Is sustainability an enduring issue?
You have to think about that one!
Sage
