Positive Purchasing Power
Comments(0) Sometimes I feel like this guy - a little frustrated. Whilst the non-believers he’s attacking are basically a lunatic fringe, I think there’s a large majority who agree that climate change is a problem but are too concerned with their own lives to find out how they can help solve it. They’re not active non-believers - but people who just don’t believe they need to do anything about it. It will be solved by the technologists, the politicians and the corporations.
To some extent, they might be right - but at the end of the day, it’s every one of us who makes decisions that dictate what these groups do. Even if it might not feel like it sometimes, they’re all servants of the people and their salary comes out of your pocket every time you purchase something or pay your taxes. Happily, green is fast becoming the new black in some parts of the world and politicians and businesses alike have started battling with each other over their eco-credentials.
The trouble is that most people trust neither what politicians nor multinational corporations tell us, and don’t have the time to figure out whether they are making empty promises or are really making a difference. Occasionally, environmental organisations will expose the worst offenders or produce a ranking for a particular product type. But who goes to the bother of seeking out these reports? I know I don’t.
Perhaps the solution lies in giving consumers a trivially-easy way to check the “green-ness” of the products they are considering purchasing and allow them to make an informed, environmentally-aware purchasing decision. These ratings could be produced by a community process, amongst those concerned enough to spend the time to research and compare several competing manufacturers. The resulting eco-friendliness score could even be embedded into online shops, so that every customer can shop with a clear conscience.
The internet gives us such huge power to easily cross-reference information that few of us now make any significant purchase without checking a few product reviews first. Isn’t it time that we started using that same power to encourage companies to stop bullshitting us and really “go green”?
