I've been rolling around the ideas of sustainable living, environmentally friendly lifestyles, etc., and my hope to see those movements become mainstream practices. And I've run into a problem.
In American culture, it seems that people have gotten too accustomed to doing and buying whatever the billboards and TV ads tell them to do or buy. And while I don't have any hard numbers at my finger tips, I'm guessing the vast majority of those ads are paid for by for-profit companies, looking to sell some product or service (or disservice, in the case of airline travel -- ba doom boom).
So if a large percentage of the actions, purchases and behaviors of Americans are dictated by companies looking to sell a product or service, it stands to reason that sustainable lifestyles would only become truly mainstream if those companies found ways to (profitably) sell products and services that contributed to sustainable lifestyles.
My problem is: that isn't happening, and I have a hard time imagining it.
Think about it. Television manufacturers want you to buy as many big, expensive TVs as possible. From a profit perspective, they've got no motivation to encourage you to keep and repair your old TV instead of sending it to the landfill and buying three new ones.
Beverage companies want you to buy all the bottled water you can drink, shy of getting one of those rare cases of water poisoning and suing them. (They don't like being sued.) It doesn't matter to them, at least not in any financial way, that you would consume far fewer of the earth's resources by filtering and drinking the water out of your own tap at home or the office.
So the TV companies and the bottled water companies and hundreds of other types of companies all bombard you with the same message: Buy more. And in doing that, they counter any secondary, subcultural messages you may be getting to consume less -- which is one of the key messages, if not the key message, that we need for true sustainable living.
Don't get me wrong: I think we're seeing some good progress toward environmental awareness among the general population. We're slowly seeing more hybrid cars on the road. We're seeing some movements toward increased alternative fuel sources, both for vehicles and electric power generation.
But generally speaking, the trends we're seeing are schemes to reduce our impact without resorting to conservation or simpler living, and even those trends are far from mainstream.
So contrary to my journalistic, anti-brainwashing upbringing, I find myself contemplating these questions: How could media messages be tailored to further a more mainstream acceptance of environmentally sustainable living, i.e. conservation? And more to the point, who would pay for these messages?
Maybe there are companies out there now missing the boat (sorry, cliche) on advertising their pro-sustainability products and services as such. For example, Brita and other home water filter companies could be on TV telling you to buy their filters and reusable water bottles instead of disposable bottled water. Maybe they are doing this somewhere, and I'm just not seeing it. And maybe there are other companies that could revise or broaden their product/service offering to cater to the sustainability market (and hopefully promote the expansion of that market).
This is rather nerdy, I realize. And I think I might have just given away a good idea for a specialty startup advertising agency to the internets (as Courtney and Mickey call it). But, I'm interested in hearing your thoughts on the subject, if any. Mickey, I know you probably have some, and feel free to make your own post out of them if they're too much for the comment section. (No pressure.)
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9 comments:
Hi Chris -
I can't babble on too long as I have a bus to catch to work...
France, being socialist, is much further ahead of the US in promoting sustainable lifestyles for the average person.
Recycling fees are included in your rent/apartment fees and they pick it up at your door (with the exception of glass) un-sorted.
Grocery stores do not offer any bags, but sell re-usable ones for less than $1 (with lifetime exchange if the bag breaks). You can also just buy plastic bags for about 5 cents each if you're not buying much - and they you can recycle them once at home.
And the whole convenient public transportation thing is really amazing. We each pay about $70/month for unlimited public transportation passes. That covers bus, tramway, and metro - all day, any day. And we can get anywhere in the city and suburbs on it.
All this to say - France does have some good things going for it over the US (I have to remind myself of that on days I don't want to be here.) But I think it's because, as you said, we're not under a capitalistic umbrella.
PS - Brita read your blog: http://www.filterforgood.com/
(I know you were just using Brita as an example, but thought you might be interested.)
Just so you all know, Chris got this in his head because we have lots of bottled water in the fridge. Why? Because Rome, Ga., water is nasty and comes from brown rivers where the town above us empties their human waste. So, unless this reusable bottle has a filter on it so that no matter where I take it I can get filtered water, I'll be drinking that bottled water and recycling the bottles. Maybe the question should really be: Why don't we try to find some other place to dump our shit other than the rivers from which we drink?
Great post. I've actually considered making environmental journalism the focus of my doctoral dissertation in a few years, specifically how it attempts to counter the "buy more" advertising messages we're constantly inundated with.
But I am encouraged to see more companies taking a green approach to their advertising. If nothing else, maybe people will get the message that they should be thinking about our planet. But until it becomes truly profitable to be environmentally friendly, sadly, it won't happen.
Yeah, you beat me to the punch on this one. I just told Courtney last night that I was planning an anti-consumerism rant in light of the holidays. Now I just need to find a unique angle for it. And Meaghan: that brown stuff in the rivers is mud, not poop. Your water is fine.
Just for the record: this post was not devised as an attack on Meaghan. Bottled water is just one of many, many examples.
And yes, I think some researchers could do a lot of good (and possibly make a lot of money) coming up with some better process for disposing of our wastewater. It seems to me that filtering and adding chemicals can only do so much for the downstream water supply -- in my scientifically uneducated opinion.
Mickey, I used to write about the city's water system as part of my beat at the newspaper. Yes sir, it IS poop...and mud... and chicken shit runoff.
How did I not know that I was friends with a bunch of raving, socialist hippies?
All right, Meaghan, you've got something with the chicken shit. I'll buy that one. And I'll still drink the water.
Actually, Brita used to make a water bottle that had a tiny filter in the cap. I carried one everywhere. It was pretty awesome but after a year or so it started wheezing in an annoying fashion.
And Chris, I believe part of the hold up is the liberal media that tends to do the environmental message thing for all the large companies. Who needs to pay for advertising when the news segment is free?
Anyone going to call me out on the fact that many of the featured "specialists" work for the people that bought the ads that support the news? No? Awesome. Back to your consumer lives, then. Long live the big screen tv!
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