What we're doing right
Selling sustainability
18th February 2010
"We're going to have to embrace the things we hate."
Rather than capitalising on climate change (and making us feel all the more apathetic), could advertising could be used to make us buy less, not more?
“Were we just being stupid?” asks the narrator of 2009’s hit documentary The Age of Stupid, a dystopic vision of a world ravaged by climate change.
“The answer,” replies Erik Assadourian, “has little to do with humans being stupid or self-destructive and everything to do with culture.”
Assadourian is the project director of the Worldwatch Institute’s 27th State of the World, an annual report dedicated to one key social and environmental issue. Previous editions covered sustainable economics, climate change, the rise of China and India, and the future of cities. The 2004 tome tackled what many see as the root cause of climate change: consumerism. And this year’s takes on what many see as the root cause of consumerism, the “one dimension of our environmental dilemma that remains largely neglected: its cultural roots.”
Rather than focusing on technology or policy, Assadourian argues, we need to harness the “pillars” of culture, such as education, the arts, religion and the media. He believes educational and freely accessible films like The Story of Stuff will go a lot further to change people’s core behaviour than legislation.
One of the tools Assadourian is most keen to harness: the advertising industry, worth more than $643 billion (US) in 2008.
I spoke to him in London.
But aren’t advertising and marketing the very things that have gotten us into this mess?
Consumer interests have been incredibly effective at just that: convincing people to buy things they don’t need. But maybe we can learn from them to achieve different aims. How can we harness the tools of culture – such as ritual, music, and art – as effectively as consumer interests have?
Do you really want to take the same approach as the very forces you’re trying to oppose? In an ideal world shouldn’t we be able to create the world we want the way we want?
In an ideal world we wouldn’t have advertisers manipulating people and confusing the hell out of them, but we don’t live in an ideal world. So the best we can do is scale up the green message in turn. We need more marketers defecting from the dark side.
Isn’t that ethically murky?
We won’t succeed as a movement unless we abandon those tactics that haven’t worked so far. We are going to have to learn to embrace the things we hate.
So how can you “sell” people on the idea of buying less stuff?
It’s all in how you package the message. Take Back Your Time is a perfect example: instead of telling people they should want less money, tell them they should want more free time. Studies show that as working hours go up so does per capita environmental footprint and rates of consumption – while other measures of health and happiness go down. And who doesn’t want more free time?
But what about the human propensity to want shiny things? It seems pretty ingrained – why else would we all buy so many things we don’t need?
I don’t think it is an inevitable part of the human condition to consume. I think that culture actually shapes people’s behaviour more than our innate psychology – so let’s try and change our culture. Humans are practically blank slates. I illustrated this idea by serving platters of tempura battered roast grasshoppers at the book launch.
Ew.
You might find that revolting, but in other parts of the world that would be considered a delicacy. That’s my point – our behaviour is more plastic than we might think.
I don’t know if I buy this (cough). Do you really think you could convince the majority of people to make less money and buy less stuff, even with the best advertising in the world?
We don’t need to convince everyone. We just need a small, committed group of people to drive the right ideas forward. That is how you change the world – not by persuading the majority, but with a dedicated minority. All you need is a few cultural pioneers.
But will the changes be fast enough?
The best-case scenario is punctuated equilibrium: step-wise progress. Long periods with little change punctuated with short bursts of rapid change.
Is that really going to work?
It’s the best we can hope for.
Let’s be honest: things are pretty bleak right now. Your book is full of grim statistics. A fifth of coral reefs are dead and the rest may be gone in twenty years. We’re overshooting the Earth’s carrying capacity by 40 per cent and it’s only getting worse. The impact of the greenhouse gases already emitted will be felt for at least 1000 years, even if we shut down every engine now. Is there any reason to have hope?
Sure there is. I have hope because I believe that consumerism will fail and that the transformation is inevitable. All the pieces are already there – the people who are working on sustainable alternatives just need to scale up.
Well Buy Nothing Day, World Carfree Day and Earth Hour are all very nice ideas, but it’s quite clear they aren’t making a very big dent.
Maybe – we can’t change the world overnight. But what we can do is sow the seeds of sustainability now. That way they can take root, then grow and flourish when change becomes unavoidable.
State of the World 2010: Transforming Cultures from Consumerism to Sustainability is published by Earthscan.