Back from E2 meeting. E2 is a wonderful environmental organization for environmental entrepreneurs, that works a lot on policy issues. David Gohigian, Assistant secretary, U.S. Department of Commerce was the guest speaker, along with Bop Epstein, co-founder of E2. At the end, someone in the audience raised the question of:
A lot of attention is being paid on policies, businesses, and technology, but what is being done to change consumer behaviors?
One of the answers was: to shift behavior at the point of purchase, through price incentives. Other solution mentioned: to deliver convincing information such as percentile data for household energy consumption.
Here is the irony. Most of us – myself included – drove to the meeting. We drank bottled water, in plastic cups. #1 recyclable plastic, but plastic still. Lunch was served in disposable paper plates.
My point is, the hurdles to changing consumer behaviors are HUGE. And price incentives are only a very small part of the answer.
La Marguerite 
Did anyone mention that if advertisement can create demand; advertisement has the power to create a smarter consumer.
By reversing the trends which emerged post war, late forties according to magazine ads. A retrograde movement could begin immediately with the same emphasis.
Draw the money by suddenly making it appealing to be earth friendly. Narrowing the rich-poor divide, it would attract the would be greens, and do it faster than the law.
As Mary Hunt points out, women hold most of the purse strings, is it not possible to use innate vanity to foster positive change? the return to local pride, health is beautiful, and natural is cool.
It’s attitudinal? It’s marketable.
In June a group that I belong to for networking was having it’s member only meeting – in an effort to be green and to set a lovely table I asked all the members to bring a tea cup/ coffee mug/ water goblet, a cloth napkin, and plate. Everyone participated and it was so wonderful. Bring your own stuff next time and watch what happens. Don’t say anything. Just eat, stash in your bag accordingly and do it the next time too – see if anyone follows the lead. Your such a leader!!
Mother Earth aka Karen Hanrahan
http://www.bestwellnessconsultant.com
Life is full of such ironies 🙂
My large-bellied friend sits at dinner lamenting his large belly, a dinner we have at his home which is 340 metres from his work… he drives each day.
My unemployed friend laments his joblessness, before admitting that this year he has applied for just three jobs.
My single friend… well, you get the picture.
Or further back in history, the man who wrote, “we hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal…” held slaves.
On a similar theme, I was unimpressed by this post by some guy, where he said that he wasn’t going to make any changes unless someone else did, and neither should any companies, so therefore no-one could do anything unless government forced them.
As I said in a comment there,
Why do something which no-one else is doing? Well, actually quite a lot of people are doing something, if you go looking to talk to them; but even if they’re not, let’s turn that question around: why not do something no-one else is doing? What are we, still in high school and we don’t want to stand out? Why not do something which is no real inconvenience to us?
Will it have a wider impact? Well, does it matter? Aren’t there some things which are right or wrong to do, regardless of their wider impact? I once passed $30,000 sitting unwatched in a bank (a bank clerk was about to put it in the ATM), I could have grabbed it without being noticed or filmed. But I didn’t take it. Why not? Would it really make any difference to the world? Of course not – but it would be wrong to steal, so it would make a difference to me.
Perhaps I cannot make the world a better place, but I can at least not make a contribution to it being a shittier place.
Anyone who thinks that an individual’s actions cannot be of any use ought to think of their mum and dad, or some favourite teacher, and the effect they had on many people’s lives. The simplest acts can be revolutionary. Gandhi, after all, began his part in the liberation of India from British rule by going for a long walk to make some salt.
Thank you, thank you, to all three of you, for your most generous comments.
Yes to all.
Yes, Nadine, to the power of advertising, but we’ve got to get the message right, and a good story/product to sell, and the money behind it. I guess, this is what this blog is all about. Reaching a greater understanding of what’s going on in people minds and hearts. So that their deeper needs can be reconciled with the global imperatives.
Yes, Karen, to the power of modeling. I have not made that leap yet. Still have not taken that seemingly small step of bringing my own eating and drinking utensils to places. But I am sure I will soon . . .
Yes, Kyle, to all your wonderful points, and for inspiring me. Your blog is so rich with thoughts and insights. I invite all to visit!
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