Ethical and Sustainable Consumption Will Not Solve Climate Change

Graphic by Anjali Rao-Herel ‘22

By Nina Larbi ’22

Op-Ed Editor

Climate change is the slow apocalypse already underway. The planet has warmed 1 degree Celsius compared to pre-industrial times, according to the International Panel on Climate Change, threatening mass extinctions and natural disasters like wildfires and floods. Awareness of the dire situation of the planet has led to increasing environmental consciousness in highly developed countries with a history of mass consumption like the United States. People are sitting down and asking themselves, “How can I reduce my carbon footprint?” beyond just turning the lights and water faucet off when they are not in use. 

In response to the pursuit of a smaller carbon footprint, various “ethical and sustainable” brands have established themselves, making their way to consumers via social media advertisements and targeted articles on lifestyle websites. Despite the clear benefit ethical and sustainable products provide, we cannot buy our way out of a global environmental crisis. Climate change requires both top-down and bottom-up levels of change, and not just with consumer products. 

Overconsumption is directly leading us to impending environmental collapse, whether it be fossil fuels releasing greenhouse gases that warm the planet or consumer goods with externalities. Cheap goods, like $15 t-shirts, exchange a low price tag for poor working conditions and pollution at various points along the supply chain. In this way, both the environment and workers are paying the price for cheap goods. 

In over-consuming countries like the U.S., consumption is built into people’s lifestyles. Gasoline-powered cars, smartphones, toilets that flush down a stupidly large amount of water and the ubiquity of rarely recycled plastic packaging are parts of our lives. This consumption can be reduced by using hybrid or electric cars and energy-efficient light bulbs and buying a toilet that has varying flushing settings. But these modifications are either nominal in their impact or absurdly expensive for most people. 

Regarding lifestyle goods, consumers do have more choice and can pick a sustainable option that is neither incrementalist nor inordinately expensive. Clothes and shoes are the easiest to swap out for sustainable alternatives because they don’t require in-depth research, installation or maintenance, unlike other products. Thus, a crop of “ethical” and “sustainable” brands like Everlane, Ecoalf and Veja have gained popularity, each promising a guilt-free product that neither harms workers nor excessively pollutes the environment. 

Despite the attractiveness of such products, companies are still companies, and they want to sell people products. Greenwashing is a deceptive marketing tactic that makes products seem more environmentally friendly than they are; for example, using the color green on packaging and advertising that a product has “natural” qualities despite there being no clear definition of the word. Blue-washing is the formation and heavy advertisement of an agreement to comply with the United Nations Global Compact, a non-binding corporate commitment to sustainability. 

Brands will also proclaim their mission to work on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals without any evidence of doing so. There are ways to check companies’ sustainability commitments, but all require synthesizing publicly available data and statements, which are often sparse or nonexistent regarding labor standards and pollution. Popular ethical and sustainable brand Everlane’s data was synthesized by the Australian application Good on You, and they found no evidence that Everlane pays a living wage in its supply chain or makes conscious efforts to reduce textile and water waste.

Ultimately, green consumption is a business-as-usual model with a leaf on it. Even if companies aren’t lying about their commitments to sustainability, feigned sustainability pressures individuals to bear the burden of global environmental destruction through the singular freedom of consumer choice rather than holding large corporations and governments responsible for causing and allowing climate catastrophe. Cultural awareness of sustainability is beneficial, but it does little to remove the problem at its root, which is lax and avoidable environmental and economic policy that permits corporations to completely wring the Earth dry of its resources and mistreat workers.