Being green is more than just buying ‘eco’. It is an unshakable commitment to a sustainable lifestyle.
- Jennifer Nini (Eco Warrior Princess)
The Blue Planet has a fever. I don’t think anyone will be surprised by this statement. Regardless your opinion about it, unless you’ve been living in an isolated land for the past few years, just emerged and stumbled onto this post, “global warming” must be something you’ve heard about. This specific global warming is not worrying because of the fact that the planet is getting warmer; as many pointed out, it happened before in the past. As the Earth moves around the sun, is sometimes ends up being further away or closer from the sun than usual for an extended period of time and boom! Here comes the climatic cycle, alternating between glacial (ice age) and inter-glacial (global warming) periods. The human species appeared during the latest ice age the Earth has known, and the following inter-glacial period favoured the development of agriculture.
The climatic cycle is not the problem per se, as long as it follows a naturally occurring cyclic pattern. The problem is that it is happening all too fast, a lot sooner than it should be according to the Earth cycle. The problem is that it is not a natural global warming period; it is a human-caused. Which means that if it is too late to stop the current climate change altogether, there are things we can do to at least not make it worst. Having an eco-conscious is not trendy anymore, it is a necessity. And the 2 main things we can act on in our day-to-day life is what we eat and what we buy. I won’t go into the diet-side of things here, but with Christmas around the corner (already!), let’s focus on the shopping-side.
Western modern societies are materialistic. We are taught to value possessions, to always want more, to feel like we are defined by our things and terrestrial properties. How much one earns defined a social status associated with how many things one can buy. Trying to dissociate yourself from this common vision is seen as “alternative”, and quite often mocked. Thankfully, we are starting to realise that we need to change our approach to possessions in order to tackle climate change. R&D teams and marketing campaigns now focus on the sustainability of a product, on its low carbon footprint, on its “eco”. Green buying was born.
Is buying green the solution though? Any approach to consumerism (the socio-economic trend encouraging acquisition of goods and services) promotes reducing consumption by repairing and reusing things instead of throwing them away and buying new things. A lot of people are promoting this approach, numerous repair shops popping around the world and network of people offering the exchange of services and competences. “Sustainable” now means long-term economic viability and managing limited natural resources. So instead of creating anew, why not creating from what we already have?
A new study looked at the impact of financial and pro-environmental behaviours on well-being. Researchers conducted what is called a longitudinal study, carried out over 5 years, investigating not only the level of materialism (i.e., attachment to material possessions), the tendency to save money, green buying, reduced consumption, personal and financial satisfactions, psychological distress and overall well-being.
Contrary to their hypothesis, the team found that materialism did not have a negative association with well-being. However, unsurprisingly, the more materialistic a person is, the less likely they were to reduce their consumption or save money. Duh. It is hard to save money when you tend to buy new things. Materialistic people are still likely to engage in green buying though, probably because it still involves acquiring new things while satisfying their eco-conscious.
The research did show an association between being able to save money and personal and financial satisfaction, as well as a personal well-being and reduced psychological distress. Green buying did not show such associations. Neither of the pro-environmental approaches was associated with increased life satisfaction.
What does it mean? Well it seems that even though green buying is better for the planet than “classic” consumerism, reducing our consumption altogether is associated with greater well-being. You feel better when you buy less than when you buy green.
What does it not say? You might have noticed that I used “association” when reporting the results. The study does not tell us the direction of those relationships between well-being and financial/environmental behaviours. It could be that happier people reduce their consumption and not that reducing their consumption makes them happier. Additionally, materialistic might be less happy for a number of reasons, not all linked to a higher consumption tendency.
What does it tell us? Changing the consumer habits will not happen overnight. It is embedded in many cultures and if we want to limit the impact on the environment, we need to relearn our approach to consumption. Understanding how to manage limited resources at a micro/personal level is becoming more pressing.
More studies should investigate the direction of the relationships between well-being and reduce consumption: will reducing how much we buy will make us happy or do we need to be happy to buy less? In any case, curbing our materialist urges seems to be pretty reasonable and our purse will definitely be thankful for this and when it comes to buying new things (let’s be real, we will probably always need to purchase things, food for a start), green buying and eco-friendly brands should be encouraged and promoted. Let’s make ‘green’ the new black!
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