State of the World 2004: Special Focus: The Consumer Society

January 2004
ISBN: 0-393-32539-3
245 pages

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“The environmental movement as we know it today could not exist without the extraordinary researchers at Worldwatch”
Bill McKibben, best-selling author of The End of Nature

A Bangladeshi child eats a bowl of rice. An American child plays with a plastic doll. A woman in Finland talks on a cell phone. A man in Zimbabwe fills his car with gasoline. A Japanese woman reads a newspaper.

Think of the objects you buy and use in any given day. Now, try to imagine that there are more than 1.7 billion human beings in the consumer society—and their numbers are growing yearly. In many cases, excessive consumption burdens societies with bulging landfills, declining fish stocks, and rising obesity levels. Meanwhile, there are still another 2.8 billion who consume too little and who suffer from hunger, homelessness, and poverty.

On the Worldwatch Institute’s thirtieth anniversary, this special edition of State of the World examines how we consume, why we consume, and what impact our consumption choices have on the planet and our fellow human beings. From factory-farmed chicken to old-growth lumber to gas-guzzling cars, many of the things we buy support destructive industries. But businesses, governments, and concerned citizens can harness this same purchasing power to build markets for less-hazardous products, including fair-traded foods, green power, and fuel-cell vehicles.

With chapters on food, water, energy, the politics of consumption, and redefining the good life, Worldwatch’s award-winning research team asks whether a less-consumptive society is possible—and then argues that it is essential.

Acknowledgments

List of Boxes, Tables, and Figures

Foreword

Børge Brende, Norwegian Minister of the Environment

Preface

State of the World: A Year in Review

Lori Brown

Chapter 1: The State of Consumption Today

Gary Gardner, Erik Assadourian, and Radhika Sarin


The world today produces and consumes more than ever before. Modern industrialworkers now produce in a week what took their 18th century counterparts fouryears. Private consumption expenditures—the amount spent on goods and servicesat the household level—topped more than $20 trillion in 2000, a four-foldincrease over 1960.

One quarter of humanity—1.7 billion people worldwide—now belong tothe “global consumer class,” having adopting the diets, transportationsystems, and lifestyles that were once mostly limited to the rich nations ofEurope, North America, and Japan. Today, China, India, and other developing countriesare home to growing numbers of these consumers.

Yet the world is one of contrasts. While the consumer class thrives, great disparitiesremain. As many as 2.8 billion people on the planet struggle to survive on lessthan $2 a day, and more than one billion people lack reasonable access to safedrinking water. The 12 percent of the world’s population that lives inNorth America and Western Europe accounts for 60 percent of private consumptionspending, while the one-third living in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa accountsfor only 3.2 percent.

People must consume to survive, and the world’s poorest will need to increasetheir level of consumption if they are to lead lives of dignity and opportunity.But the world cannot continue on its current trajectory—the earth’snatural systems simply cannot support it. The economies of mass consumption thatproduced a world of abundance for many in the twentieth century face an entirelydifferent challenge in the twenty-first: to focus not on the indefinite accumulationof goods but instead on a better quality of life for all, with minimal environmentalharm.

BEHIND THE SCENES: Plastic Bags

Chapter 2: Making Better Energy Choices

Janet L. Sawin


Everything we use and consume—our homes and their contents, our cars andthe roads we travel, even our clothes and our food—requires energy. We need energy to produce, package, distribute, operate, and eventually disposeof all these items.

Despite significant improvements in energy efficiency and a decline in the energyintensity of the global economy, the desire for bigger and faster lifestyles—combinedwith population growth—is driving a rapid increase in energy use worldwide.

In China, India, and many other developing countries, energy use is rising rapidlyas more people gain access to electricity and can afford to buy cars and modernappliances. While this creates new challenges in a world where resources arelimited—the planet simply cannot provide for everyone to live like theaverage American or European—consuming more energy is not always bad. Formany people, an increase in energy use is an essential prerequisite to meetingtheir basic needs, such as lighting, pumped water, or refrigeration.

In the industrial world, however, people are using more energy largely becausethey are buying more and bigger appliances, houses, and vehicles. Today, theworld’s richest people use on average 25 times more energy than the world’spoorest.

Yet it is possible to live a more energy-efficient life. Already, in countrieslike Norway and Japan, people enjoy a very high standard of living while usingfar less energy per person than the average American. Government policies—includingregulations, standards, subsidies, and taxes—are critical for improvementsin energy efficiency and conservation, and for the sustained growth of cleanerand “greener” energy technologies. At the same time, individual consumerscan play a large role through their everyday choices, by creating demand forproducts and services that are more energy-efficient, and by influencing widerpolicy decisions.

BEHIND THE SCENES: Computers

Chapter 3: Boosting Water Productivity

Sandra Postel and Amy Vickers


A sustainable and secure society is one that meets its water needs without destroying the ecosystems upon which it depends, or the prospects of generations yet to come. The good news is that it is possible to achieve this goal; however, there are significant challenges to overcome before this goal can become a reality.

The scale and pace of human impacts on freshwater systems accelerated over the past half-century, along with population and consumption growth. Worldwide, water demands roughly tripled. The number of large dams climbed from 5,000 in 1950 to more than 45,000 today. For a time, only the benefits of these engineering projects were registered. Their social and ecological costs—the people displaced from their homes, the soils contaminated by salts, the fisheries destroyed, the aquatic species imperiled—were hardly considered.

Easing both overconsumption and underconsumption are the two equally important sides of the global water challenge. In the developing world, the most urgent task is to provide all people with at least the minimum amount of clean water and sanitation needed for good health. But so far, the political will and financial commitments to provide the poor with access to these basic services have not been sufficient. Conversely, in industrial countries, curbing water consumption—including regulating the massive amounts of water used to groom lawns—is a persistent challenge. And in both the industrialized and developing worlds, there exists a great deal of waste and inefficiency in managing water. Opportunities to increase the efficiency of water use on farms, in factories, and in cities and homes have barely been tapped.

Individuals have an important role to play by making responsible choices about their water consumption habits. By choosing a healthy and less water-intensive diet, an attractive and climate-appropriate landscape, and a lifestyle with fewer material goods, individuals can help build a world where the water needs of all are met with minimal harm to the environment.

BEHIND THE SCENES: Antibacterial Soap

Chapter 4: Watching What We Eat

Brian Halweil and Danielle Nierenberg


Among the many daily decisions we make, the one that has possibly the greatest impact on the environment is the food we choose to eat. Our collective demand as consumers influences how food is both raised and consumed. Our choices can support forms of agriculture that are destructive to human, ecological, and animal health—such as the factory farm approach to raising livestock—or they can support practices that are better for people, animals, and the planet.

The global food trade and the proliferation of processed foods have distanced us both geographically and psychologically from where our food is produced. In the industrialized world we pay a very large hidden price for the highly processed products and cheap fast food we have grown accustomed to. These social and environmental consequences include polluted streams and rivers, resistance to antibiotics, dramatically high rates of obesity, a breakdown of shared mealtimes, and the loss of jobs for small, local farmers.

There are ways, however, to reshape our food consumption to better protect the environment and human health. To start, we need a new set of standards for evaluating what is and isn’t healthy when it comes to food. In the industrialized world, we need to move beyond counting calories, and to look at whether our food was raised with pesticides, hormones, and antibiotics that harm our health and the environment.

The most profound changes “eaters” can make include eating less meat or eliminating it from their diet, supporting food produced without agrochemicals, and buying locally grown food. While eating is not a choice, we do have the right—and the responsibility—to choose how our food is produced. From shopping at a local farmers’ market to preparing meatless meals to buying fair-traded coffee and cocoa, small but growing groups of consumers all over the world are voting with their forks and their wallets to build a healthier food system.

BEHIND THE SCENES: Bottled Water,Chicken, Chocolate, Shrimp, Soda

Chapter 5: Moving Toward a LessConsumptive Economy

Michael Renner


Today’s industrial economies are able to churn out large quantities of goods with considerable ease and at such low cost that there is great incentive to regard most merchandise as throwaways—intended to fall apart easily—rather than designing and manufacturing for durability. This mentality, perpetuated by unbridled consumption and the quest for endless economic growth, has brought humanity to the edge of an environmental abyss. Our world is one of resource overuse, widespread air and water pollution, diminished ecosystems, and a delicate climate balance that is being unhinged.

We need a major reduction in the human claim on Earth’s resources. But because humanity’s poorest desperately need to increase their consumption, the rich will need to cut their use of energy and materials—some argue by as much as 90 percent over the next few decades.

A less consumptive economy is possible, but it will take government action, consumer education, and growing numbers of corporate trailblazers to make it happen. Innovative opportunities to curb consumption now exist at the government, business, and consumer levels—many of which are already being put into action. These include: developing environmental standards and other regulatory tools; undertaking ecological tax reforms that make market prices reflect the full ecological costs of products; reducing the raw materials needed to create a product; utilizing “cradle-to-cradle” or “closed-loop” systems where the byproducts of one factory become the feedstock of another; implementing “extended producer responsibility” laws that require companies to take back products at the end of their useful life; and extending and deepening the lives of products by making them more durable, and easier to repair and upgrade.

BEHIND THE SCENES: Cell Phones

Chapter 6: Purchasing for People and the Planet

Lisa Mastny


Spending billions of dollars annually on goods and services—often more than the gross domestic product (GDP) of entire countries—corporations, international organizations, universities, and other large institutions are key in fostering the shift toward an environmentally sustainable world. Through their daily purchases, these mega-consumers hold considerable sway over the health and stability of many of the world’s most fragile ecological systems.

In some industrial countries, government purchasing accounts for as much as 25 percent of GDP. Government procurement in the European Union alone totaled more than $1 trillion in 2001, or 14 percent of GDP. In North America, it reached $2 trillion, or about 18 percent of GDP. Universities, too, spend billions of dollars each year on everything from campus buildings to cafeteria food. In the United States, colleges bought some $250 billion in goods and services in 1999—equivalent to nearly 3 percent of U.S. GDP. And the United Nations spent nearly $14 billion on goods and services in 2000.

Because of the large-scale, systematic approach that most institutions apply to their purchasing decisions, a single purchase made by one professional buyer or department can have a tremendous ripple effect, influencing the products used by hundreds or even thousands of individuals. Green purchasing—buying products that are better for the environment and for human health—can save institutions money as well. Recycled toner cartridges, low-flush toilets, and compact fluorescent lamps are just a few of the items that bring considerable cost savings, whether upfront or over their lifetimes. Moreover, for many corporations, green purchasing can be a way to win recognition—as well as “PR” points—from both supporters and critics.

BEHIND THE SCENES: Paper

Chapter 7: Linking Globalization, Consumption, and Governance

Hilary French


The rapid globalization of the consumer economy during the 1990s was closely linked with a general economic boom in the form of more manufactured goods and services, and greater monetary flows across international borders.

One subcomponent of this expansion has been the rapid growth in trade in a range of environmentally sensitive commodities, such as minerals, forest products, fish, and agricultural produce—all which leave their mark on the planet’s natural systems.

Additionally, by stretching the physical distance between the location where a product is first made to where it is later used and then disposed of, today’s global economies tend to insulate end consumers from the various negative environmental and social impacts of their purchases.

Shifting to more sustainable patterns of consumption and production is a global challenge. Global alliances need to be strengthened to create an economy based on protecting rather than plundering the planet’s wealth. This can be achieved in part by strengthening international environmental treaties and institutions, revamping world trade rules, and promoting more effective collaboration among international institutions, national governments, the private sector, and non-governmental organizations.

BEHIND THE SCENES: Cotton T-shirts

Chapter 8: Rethinking the Good Life

Gary Gardner and Erik Assadourian


If you are very poor, there is no doubt that greater income can improve your life. But once the basics are secured, well-being does not necessarily correlate with wealth. Today, many discussions of sustainability focus on the ecological or economic measures needed for a healthy world. But the social and psychological needs of human beings also shape our cultures, and help to determine whether our civilization is sustainable or not.

Most governments make ongoing growth in the gross domestic product (GDP) a leading priority of domestic policy, under the assumption that wealth secured is well-being delivered. Yet undue emphasis on generating wealth, particularly by encouraging heavy consumption, may be yielding disappointing returns. Overall quality of life is suffering in some of the world’s richest countries as people experience greater stress and time pressures and less satisfying social relationships, and as the natural environment shows more and more signs of distress.

By redefining prosperity to emphasize a higher quality of life, rather than the mere accumulation of goods, individuals, communities, and governments can focus on delivering what people most desire. Indeed, a new understanding of “the good life” can be built not around wealth, but around well-being: having basic needs met, along with freedom, health, security, and satisfying social roles.

Notes

Index