Who really controls what we buy - As industrial culture spreads across the globe, we buy ready-made goods more and
more often, rather than growing or making what we need, so our range of choices becomes controlled by store-keepers, especially
in large supermarkets. As the supermarkets' suppliers are often transnational corporations, it is these TNCs - a powerful,
unelected elite - which ultimately controls many of our consumer choices.
Full and frank labelling - When you buy soya beans, how can you know whether they have been genetically modified unless
the label tells you? You can't - and it doesn't. Even when a product label is frank, it is not complete. Ethical consumers
ought to know how much waste (i.e. pollution) has been created, and how many unrenewable resources have been consumed, in
the manufacture of a product - and also in its distribution. A lettuce that has been transported to New York from California
costs a lot of 'food miles'. To be ethical consumers, we need to know the sustainability-cost - the real cost - of what we
consume as individuals.
An elegant sufficiency - Almost any consumption uses up resources. But since one can't live without some consumption,
a more useful question may be: how could I live just as satisfyingly with less? If there were a fashion in your neighbourhood
to replace serviceable old toilet seats with trendy wooden ones, you could choose between buying a mahogany toilet seat and
a sustainable wood toilet seat - or just opt not to follow the fashion at all. People are increasingly experimenting with
living simply but more fulfillingly with 'an elegant sufficiency'.
Whom do politicians represent? - We also need to be aware of the sustainability cost of the consumer choices made on
our behalf, collectively, by politicians. For example, how much do we, as a nation or a globe, spend on arms, and how much
do these damage the environment? Each F-16 jet taking off on a regular training mission consumes 3,400 litres of fuel - undoing
in a matter of moments all the good you have done by leaving your car in the garage for months or even years. The military
is the biggest polluter in the world: we need to make sure that it doesn't leave citizens to take the rap. Politicians often
kow-tow not only to the military but also to TNCs, instead of standing up to them on behalf of the citizens they are supposed
to represent.
To buy is to vote - But these companies, however powerful, have an Achilles heel: they can only survive as long as
we buy their goods. In that sense, we 'elect' them, many times each day. We vote 'Yes' with every purchase we make - a pound
of bananas, a tank of diesel fuel - and we vote 'No' with every purchase we turn down, forcing the companies to diversify
into products we prefer. Can consumer campaigns really work? Yes - if enough people join in. A lone shopper boycotting Nestlé
products won't make a dent, but associations of consumers are taken more seriously. OneWorld can help: many of our partners
run campaigns you can join.
