Sustainability: Living

Ethical consumption is regarded as the simple way to save the world for everyone, but what difference does it really make?

In the organic shop round the corner from my house, and the reverse vending machine has been removed, and since then the lady at the bakery counter also has to look after the returnable bottles. In its place, there is now a large fridge with organic energy drinks, and in the summer they were even handing out free flip-flops made of foamed plastic. In another fridge, there are plastic bags with ready-to-eat salad leaves and mini-portions of cubed pineapple in plastic tubs. Otherwise, there is everything you would expect in a conventional supermarket, but it's all organic: packet soups, frozen pizza, fish fingers, pre-packed sausage, strawberries from Spain in February, asparagus from Peru in March, pineapples from Costa Rica and potatoes from Egypt.

This is the face of “sustainable consumption” today. It is based on the idea of so-called consumer democracy: in other words, if as many people as possible shop in an ecologically and ethically correct way, then companies will produce more and more “good” items. They certainly do – but whether that is really sustainable, and whether we can really save the world simply by going shopping, are different questions entirely. The concept of “ethical consumption” became popular in Germany with the so-called Lohas, which stands for “Lifestyle of Health and Sustainability”. The motto of this new trend is “Enjoyment with a good conscience and without doing without”. In this sense, it is not the citizens who bring about changes in politics, but rather the consumers who influence the economy through their demand.

A new take on the thinking behind consumption

Now, the idea of the “responsible consumer” is nothing new. Environmental and human-rights movements have been working for decades to ensure consumers exert pressure on the politicians, who then force companies to act in an environmentally and socially responsible manner through legislation. However, a closer look reveals that Lohas are not an update of the environmental movement, but rather a new take on the thinking behind consumption: this is not a question of political objectives, but rather the pragmatic reconciliation of the individual's lifestyle with environmental protection and social justice. We may buy strawberries in winter, but they are organic, and fish fingers made from endangered Alaskan pollock, but a donation is made to marine conservation for each pack sold. We drive a car from a company that arranges for children to plant trees, and we eat burgers made of beef that has a negative effect on the climate, but only in a fast-food restaurant with a photovoltaic system on the roof.

An increase in demand is not sufficient

It is precisely the organic boom that is taken as proof for “consumer democracy”. However, it also shows what happens if the ecological idea is subjected to market forces. Although ecological agriculture certainly is “sustainable” in the best sense of the overused word, as it protects the earth, water and biodiversity, copes without pesticides or genetic engineering and stands up for animal welfare, the ecological restructuring of the agricultural industry must be a political priority, and an increase in demand is not sufficient. In the boom year of 2007, the support funding for ecological cultivation was reduced, German organic farmers could not serve the market adequately and so organic chains, supermarkets and discount stores were forced to purchase from abroad. Even today, half of the available vegetables are imported. Because lifestyle ecologists insist on the full range of products all year round, the summer vegetables that they want in winter come from hot countries, where organic cultivation causes a lack of water and environmental damage. Because the new organic customer refuses to do without his egg for breakfast, even organic hens are kept in mass numbers and the finished items are produced with a cost in energy that is anything but ecological. The boom is having little influence on German agriculture: the ecologically cultivated area is stagnating at 5.4%, while the organic share of the food market is tiny at 3.5%.

There is no question of “doing without”

Despite the popularity of “sustainable consumption”, it is not reaching the masses. According to an EU study, 86% of people in the wealthy countries of Europe are aware of the role that their behaviour plays with regard to environmental protection. Yet for almost three quarters of them, there is no question of them changing their lifestyle. According to the “Environmental awareness in Germany” (“Umweltbewusstsein in Deutschland”) study, 84% of the participants believe that they can contribute to environmental protection through correct shopping. But 61% also insist on the proviso that their living standard must not be impaired in any way. The picture is similarly bleak when it comes to implementing ecological awareness: only 3% of German households use green power. The share of fairly traded products is a niche with a market share of between 1 and 2% – although it has been well known for more than 40 years what “fair trade” stands for. And there is no question of “doing without”: fish consumption continues to rise although the oceans have been fished almost to exhaustion, and the average German consumes 89 kg of meat per year although the latest figures show that the use of livestock is responsible for half of all pollutant gases.

New legislation is necessary

Consumer democracy, with all its hype, represents stagnation. It does not change the economy – on the contrary. The new ecologists are not a thorn in the flesh of the multi-national corporations like environmental activists who damage the corporate image with their campaigns. No, they actually generate more profit. And if their wealthy customers want it, the companies are happy to put environmental protection and human rights on their supermarket shelves. This form of crisis PR is known as “greenwashing”: by presenting themselves as “responsible”, companies manage to fend off legal restrictions and can keep themselves out of the firing line of politicians and society in general. This, too, is a consequence of “sustainable consumption”. Yet the fact remains that the cheaper products are purchased and manufactured, the more companies will earn – that is, in places where it is possible to turn a blind eye to human rights and environmental protection. These structures can only be changed by laws, and not by the sense of moral well-being of Western consumers. “Sustainable consumption” is a trade in indulgences, a green veil under which everything remains completely unchanged: the companies maintain their devastating economic behaviour, and the consumers keep their expensive lifestyle.