m-cause

I moved to Europe about 10 years ago and each time I go back to the US for a visit, I get a bit of ”reverse culture shock” when it comes to consumption.  Don’t get me wrong…I love coming back to the US, and I love my country.  I just feel really uncomfortable about our levels of consumer consumption (food portions, house sizes, energy usage).  Just the general amount of stuff people have is almost overwhelming when I compare it to what I am now accustomed to after living in Germany, Switzerland, and Bosnia-Herzegovina.  I guess its a pretty well known fact that the United States, with only five percent of the world’s population, consumes around 25% percent of the world’s fossil fuel. We are also the most obese country in the world, with 32% of adults aged 20+ considered to be too fat.  Childhood obesity is reaching epidemic levels and if it continues, the current generation will be one of the first in history to have lower life expectancy than their parents.  What has gone wrong?  As a predominantly Christian country shouldn’t we be living lives of relative simplicity, eschewing gluttony, and modeling this lifestyle to the world? 

I recently saw a great post on consumption by Andrew Savitz on the triple bottom line blog.  His post entitled, “Consumption, the Other Side of Sustainability” is insightful.  He brings up the fact that we rarely discuss sustainable consumption when we discuss sustainability.   Andy notes that if every country were to consume like the US, it would take 12 planet earths to fulfill demand. As world growth and wealth continues to explode (we will be 9 billion by 2050) somethings gotta give. He sees about 5 areas that, combined, should bring about change:  Market Forces, Regulation, Technical innovation, Intl. conflict, Redefinition of consumer preferences.  

I basically agree with Andy’s assessment and I would seriously love to call for a “consumer preference” revolution in the US.  Quality has long trumped quantity in Europe in cuisine (and many other areas)…why is it so hard to get into this mindset? Since when did more become better?  Though I am not a big fan of govt. involvement, I think regulation and “re-regulation” is also needed badly…I just read on wikipedia that the Reagan administration abolished previous regulations on sweet/fast food advertising to children. 

We need more progressive private/public companies to dig into opportunities in the upcoming post-consumption world, but it will be hard.  Indeed, I would fall off of my chair if my boss came into my office and said to me, “Ryan, we need to see a 10% volume reduction this month to meet our goals this quarter”.  

Our capitalist model is built on consumption and growth…but somethings gotta give.   Check out an excellent audio/visual demo of this thinking called The Story of Stuff with  Annie Leonard.