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In my earlier post about the National Geographic/ GlobeScan Greendex Survey, I had talked about the dichotomy between developed and developing countries in their attitudes towards the environment –
If the consumers in developed countries are not concerned about the environment, and the consumers in developing countries won’t back up their concern with proactive consumer behavior (recycling is very rare in developing countries), there isn’t much hope for the environment, is there?
On a second reading of the Greendex report, I discovered another (more interesting) dichotomy between developed and developing countries, in their attitudes towards consumption itself.
In the chart below I have plotted the top box “strongly agree” answers for respondents from each country on two questions related to the intent to consume. The first question is an indicator of the intent to consume less and the second question is an indicator of the intent to consume more.
- Question 1: As a society, we will need to consume a lot less to improve the environment for future generations.
Annie starts off by throwing away her iPod in a trash can (really!) and asking if we have ever wondered where all the stuff we buy comes from and where it goes when we throw it out. Then, using a funny stand up script backed up by simple animation, she explains why the text book version that our stuff simply moves from extraction to production to distribution to consumption to disposal doesn’t work: it is a linear system and we live on a finite planet and you can not run a linear system on a finite planet indefinitely.
India (along with Brazil) has emerged as the most green country and USA as the least green country in the National Geographic/ GlobeScanGreendex Survey of 14,000 consumers in a total of 14 countries.
The survey included questions on sustainable consumption behavior like energy use and conservation, transportation choices, food sources, the relative use of green products versus traditional products, attitudes towards the environment and sustainability, and knowledge of environmental issues.
The Greendex study is especially interesting to me because it is focused on the environmental sustainability of our actual behavior and material lifestyles as consumers, instead of our attitudes and concerns about the environment as citizens. Not only that, it explicitly factors in the consumption choices we pro-actively make (such as repairing or recycling products) as well as the choices that are controlled more by our circumstances (such as the availability of green products or public transport), with sixty percent of the weight to the former.
The Greendex rankings look intuitive at a superficial level, but present a paradox on closer inspection.
- From conspicuous consumption to conscious consumption.
- From brand-consciousness to background-consciousness.
- From synthetic to organic.
- From mass-produced to hand-crafted.
- From global to local.
- From short-term to sustainable.
- From fashionable to durable.
- From valuing things to valuing insights.
- From fitting in/ standing out to being.
- From buying more to buying less.
- From doing more to doing less.
- From multi-tasking to down-shifting.
- From buying to sharing/ exchanging.
- From owning to experiencing.
- From having to giving.
These trends are already a strong sub-culture in Europe, they are beginning to become visible in the US, and will eventually trickle down to developing countries like Brazil, China and India.
I’m convinced that, ten years from now, it won’t be unusual for someone like me to say that they’ll only buy necessities because they are tired of buying things. It would probably never become mainstream, something most people do, but I’m sure that it would become a strong sub-culture.
If you have ever taken Economics 101, you’ll know that happiness is equal to consumption divided by desire.
Even otherwise, most of us understand this equation intuitively and, therefore, equate buying things with buying (the promise of) happiness.
However, I have been asking myself for a while if consumption itself follows the ‘bigger is better’ rule, if an increase in consumption results in an increase in happiness (tweet).
If you have ever maxed out your credit card buying the most recently fashionable clothes, gadgets, accessories or (insert your addiction here) you didn’t need, you’ll also know that consumption rarely satisfies desire.
In fact, instead of satisfying desire (consumption increases, desires decreases, happiness increases), consumption often fuels the desire to consume more (consumption increases, desires increases more, happiness decreases).
Once you have everything you need (want), buying (consuming) more of everything rarely results in more happiness. It results in ennui, which doesn’t quite taste like happiness, when I last checked.
So, if happiness is equal to consumption divided by desire, does the key to happiness lie in increasing consumption or decreasing desire (tweet)?
