The profits of businesses taking advantage of the new green consciousness will only be assured if people continue to buy their products. It is not in their interests to encourage reduced consumption. Sally White, in a report advising manufacturers, argues:

"In an affluent society such as ours, environmental problems are unlikely to be solved by heavy-handed attempts to make people consume less. The solution lies in redirecting many consumer choices towards environmentally friendly products. The answer is not necessarily reduced consumption but with more thoughtful consumption." (1990, p. 49)

White notes that environmental friendliness is only one of several factors that consumers will consider in their purchases; she advises marketers to ensure that their products have other advantages as well. She suggests that 'environmental characteristics should be positioned as supplementary to performance characteristics' because, although consumers may be willing to spend a small amount extra, they are not willing to sacrifice quality.

In contrast, most environmentalists argue that the consumer's first priority should be to buy less, to ask 'Do I really need this product?'. Yet green advertising encourages us to buy more, by suggesting we should buy a certain product because it is good for the environment. Indeed, increasing numbers of environmental groups are resorting to green consumerism to increase their funds. The Australian Conservation Foundation, The Wilderness Society and Greenpeace all market environmental goods fairly aggressively in shops and by mail.

Ian Grayson, writing in Chain Reaction (1989), argues for voluntary simplicity. He argues that it is not sustainable to continue to consume goods at current rates, even if they are more environmentally acceptable. He argues that a level of personal consumption above that required to meet basic human needs cannot be maintained by everyone in the world and therefore is inequitable if maintained by well-off people in Australia.

Juliet Kellner writes in New Internationalist that, unless the green consumer movement constantly reiterates the message that people should buy less, 'it lays itself open to being hijacked by industrialists who simply wish to look green enough to make naive shoppers purchase more of their wares' (1990, p. 18). She argues that, since manufacturers still make environmentally unfriendly products and retailers still sell green products on the shelves next to non-green ones, this shows that the real aim of the exercise is still profit and that green marketing is merely a way of expanding sales. If they were genuinely concerned to protect the environment they would replace the unsound products with sound ones, not just augment their existing lines.

Back...