The Marketer Who Went Off Consumption

Welcome to The Marketer Who Went Off Consumption! Subscribe to my RSS feed in a feed reader or by e-mail and you'll never miss any chapters from my year-long blog-as-a-book experiment on why we choose to consume, or not.

The No Impact Experiment was started in November 2006 by New York based forty-something writer Colin Beavan.

The basic idea was to spend a year with his family — wife, toddler, and dog — in the heart of New York City while causing no net environmental impact.

This involved not doing things that hurt the earth (no trash, no carbon emissions, no toxins in the water, no elevators, no subway, no products in packaging, no plastics, no air conditioning, no TV, no toilets) and doing things that help the earth (participating in garbage clean-up and reforestation projects).

The philosophy of the experiment was to find a middle path that is neither unconsciously consumerist nor self-consciously anti-materialist. The ideas was to not only restrict consumption but on change what is consumed so that it actually helps or at least does not hinder the world.

The experiment was a success, both in personal and professional terms, resulting in a book and a movie, both of which will be out in 2009.

Even though the experiment ended in November 2007, Colin has continued writing on his blog to encourage a culture of no impact lifestyle.

I came across No Impact Man via a comment by Blue after I started my own experiment, but reading about the success of Colin’s experiment has further strengthened my resolve to see mine through to the end.

• The Real Difference Between the New Yorker and Yanamamo Tribes (2)
• Insight 2.0: I’m a Marketer First, Then a Human Being (9)
• 2.5 Million Years of Economic History in Brief (0)