When I was 16, I became a vegetarian, not as much for the animals but for climate reasons. Since then, I’ve taken step by step behaviour changes to reduce the negative impact of my private consumption on people and the planet. I quit domestic flying (not very difficult), and then international flying (a bit harder). Since they were born, my children have been wearing almost only second hand clothes (not very difficult, there’s a lot of second hand children’s clothes out there). Then I started buying only second hand clothes for myself too (a bit harder). I buy fairtrade and ecological products. I save plastic bags and glass cans in order to re-use them. And while becoming vegetarian was not really a sacrifice, trying to eat as much vegan food as possible has proven a real challenge for somebody who loves brie de meaux and other cheeses of animal origin.
What impact do individual choices have?
As much as I try to make my own consumption as sustainable as possible, I am really conflicted about the concept of consumer power. I do think that everyone in the global north has the moral responsibility to consume as sustainably (and as little) as possible. What little carbon budget the world has left, we need to spend on basic infrastructure in the global south – not on over-consumption in the global north that often exploits workers in far-away countries. But will my family’s individual choices lead the way to sustainable production (SDG12), climate justice and the end of exploitation of the global workforce? And by extension, can companies stick with the business model of producing green goods and claim that they are sustainable? I am not convinced.
Information technology doing good and harm
In my next post, I will investigate the SDG on sustainable consumption and production. New media, information and communication technologies, has the potential of contributing to positive development in so many ways; it can enable refugee children to keep up with their studies, it can improve access to health care, and help farmers worldwide keep track of market information. But key components for laptops and smartphones are extracted from mines in a business infamous for violating human rights and environment, and on the other end of the value chain, it creates enormous amounts of waste, which is often dumped in the global south.
What do you think? Do we as individuals have the responsibility to consume ethically in order to drive change among tech companies? Or does change need to occur at the lawmaking level? Or somewhere else? Please comment with your thoughts!