Improving our Understanding of "Sustainability"

Sustainability is still used in a very vague form and we are fare away from any universally accepted definition as everybody seems to incorporate some of his personal hopes and fears into this term.

The 2005 UN World Summit has undertaken a first approach by addressing the "three "interdependent and mutually reinforcing pillars" economic development, social
development and environmental protection, which should be reconciliated.

However, the problem begins when it comes to the actual reconciliation process and the breaking down of these three principles. Because the just so recital of dimensions, components or pillars of sustainability will not help in our everyday economic and social activity as we

a) still have not reached any agreement about the exact form and impact of the single aspects of sustainability and

b) do not have any unifying concept of sustainability that integrates and synthesizes the single components in a practical and everyday-usable form.

The underlying problem is that - probably due to the increasing fragmentation of science - we are missing a scientific concept of sustainability that builds upon natural/biological needs rather than political or post-modern cultural sentiments. Maybe some early sustainability-thinkers like Konrad Lorenz could serve as a first basis and starting ground. To my view, any viable (sustainable) concept of sustainability has to reflect upon our more compulsive aspects of our cultural activities and try to compensate for our social and ecological excesses.

However, such a concept will only prevail if it does not work as an either-or, as a bad compromise or even as a sacrifice - as our still persisting consuming mentality still will not bear such challenges. So we have to come up with innovative concepts who are thinking sustainability in terms of OTHER/BETTER/NEW, for example like Porter & Kramer with their concept of „Shared Value“ or Michael Braungart with his concept of „Cradle 2 Cradle“.

In the end, the concerned party has to benefit and have fun with such a concept of sustainability - only then it will come into force in a practical everyday context. Maybe - driven out of sheer need to change - corporations and investors will be the first to acknowledge this and synthesize sustainability with profit to make it a long-term beneficial relation: The first implementations are already on the horizon with the sustainability index and several sustainable funds available.

Doing Good at the "GoodGoods"

Yesterday I spent my day visiting the "GoodGoods", Germany's first sustainable consumer goods show in Hamburg, which has recently been awarded the title "European Green Capital 2011". My intentions for visisting this trade fair was to better understand the whole concept of sustainability as well as to see how far both producers and consumers have advanced by now in their approach to improve our economical behavior.

My first impression was that the whole show was actually really small - all 90 exhibitors could actually be placed within one single exhibition hall (B7). And most of the stands were really tiny, but yet with a lot of alternative charme.





Right when I arrived at the show, Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker was giving a talk about his new book "Factor 5", in which he tries to prove that sustainability can be achieved by increasing resource productivity. However in the following discussion, he also rejected the impression, that we can somehow miraculously just live on the same way we have done before and cited the implemented 3R-insight of a lot of Japanese companies:

* Reduce
* Re-use
* Re-cycle

Also, he made an interesting point that "we" western democratic countries will in some way deal with even more difficulties in our effort to implement sustainability than often-criticized countries like China. Because in these countries sustainability is regarded a simple necessity given their size and their impact on the problem. So, China for example has already implemented 3R-based principles in their legislation for certain environmentally-critical industries such as mining or chemical. So while China can simply prohibit the further expansion of these industries, our countries still heavily rely on liberal mechnisms hoping that somehow the market will regulate itself. However, the discussion after his talk also showed, that Weizsäcker's understanding of sustainability is still very much driven by thoughts about leaving much like it is but just increasing efficiency to the maximum and maybe reducing a bit our consumption. This reminded me very much of the discussion with Peter Sloterdijk I attended about "Growth", which was also lacking a viable and clearly identified alternative to our current economic behavior.


After the discussion I strolled around the show in search for some really new and innovative products, but was generally mostly dissappointed. Although there were some nice design-prototypes like a carbon-fibre bike or furniture made from alternative re-cycled materials like chairs from cork, felt and paper, most products were not revolutionary in style, in material-use or in the needs they approached.


Especially disappointing was the stand of a bamboo-processing manufacturer of home-furniture, who actually destroyed the beautiful and highly stable form of bamboo, cut it to peaces and made "just" normal chairs and tables from it. Of course there is still the fact that bamboo is one of the fastest growing plants on earth and can be harvested a lot faster than normal trees thus helping to safeguard our forrests.





One polarizing exhibit of the fair was of course the Tesla Roadster which attracted a lot of the men's attention. This fine 130.000 € piece of automobile actually raised my suscpicion with regard to how much of their beloved goods German people will really be able to relinquish - especially when it comes to mobility and cars. My guess would be that only a small minority is now willing to refrain from things that are traditionally seen as part of or itself enabling our perceived "freedom of choice".



My asssumptions were then in great part supported by the talk of Dr. Jochen Menzel, who spoke in the following "Green Capital Dialog" as represantative of Hamburg's "future council" about a study tracking the changes in attitude of Hamburg's citizens about sustainability from 2000 to 2010. Although there was a decline in the willingness to relinquish the car as means of mobility, the number of bicycles in the city rose as well as the interest of people in sustainable consumption in their everyday lifes, especially when it came to buying regional (+20%) or organic (+5%) food.


After Jochen Menzel, Dr. Michael Bilharz, from the German Federal Agency for Environmental Protection, presented his definition of sustainability as well as an approach how to achieve a sustainable way of living practically. For him, sustainability can be defined as generalizability: We are living sustainably when all others now and in the future can also live this way and if we are at the same time in an ecological balance with nature. His suggestion how to practically reach this way of living is based on a two step logic: First, he intends to focus on the "big points", the issues of our behavior that form the biggest part of our ecological footprint, like use of energy for heating, fuel use, consumption of non-organic food, use of electricity and total amount of consumption. Second, he advocated to pick out of these big issues the "key points" which can be implemented most easily in our everyday life. Here he referred to a better thermal insulation of the our homes, the use of a more economical car or even better car-sharing or the use of a bicycle, the consumption of only organic food as well as investments in renewable energy, compensation payments for one's own CO²-production and the support of environmental associations. All in all, Bilharz very much focused on a climate-neutral lifestyle in his practical concept for sustainability. Also, he delegated a lot of responsibility to the consumer, although he did not exclude producers and politicians from their responsibility. My general impression after his talk was, that

a) it will be very important to define sustainability more clearly and practically relevant (for which we will need a general societal agreement on the scope and type of the underlying values we want to safeguard with a sustainable way of living) and

b) it will be necessary to define responsibilities of different stakeholders more clearly (what can/should the consumer do, how should producers be held responsible, what is exactly the role and responsibility of politicians on this topic).


In the concluding panel discussion, Jochen Menzel and Michael Bilharz discussed with Ulrike Okbay-Reichert from the German Ecorepublic Shop of the mail-order business "Otto" and Dr. Günter
Hörmann from Hamburg's consumer advice center and council of state Holger Lange about the bigger picture and learning from sustainability for Hamburg. The concluded that often consumers need to get guidelines from legislation to be able to realize their general intention to live more sustainable. Günter Hörmann referred here to a regulation that introduced labes for eggs so consumers knew which ones were produced organically, which ones from free-range chickens and which from battery farms - and ensuing the latter almost totally disappeard from the market as a result of consumers stopping to buy them. In consequence he suggested the introduction of a new label for regional and local food. However, Bilharz disagreed and said that Hamburg would not at all be in need of another label as the "blue angel" already existed and still had to be implemented before it was time for any new labels. Besides, most of the really relevant regulation was anyways coming from the federal level of legislation (German Bundestag) and could not be enacted on the state/city level of Hamburg. Upon my question after the discussion, what kind of shared understanding there was in terms of other goals and values as classic profitability, growth and gross domestic product when it comes to better defining sustainability, Jochen Menzel answered with the reference to current work of a special "enquete commission on growth" which has been founded from the German Bundestag to answer this question in detail. After some research at the site of this enquete commission I actually found something very interesting: If you lay the two world maps of (1) the Sustainable Society Index of the Sustainable Society Foundation and (2) the world happiness index virtually on top of each other, you will find that both seem to correlate very well - there might actually be a lot more to sustainability than just organic food and eco-crazy killjoys. However, the joy of living should be a basic right of every human being on this planet, now and in the future. But if we look at another worldmap, this time the "Happy Planet Index", it seems that right now we still derive too much happiness for our lives on the expense of the world's and our descendants' resources.

Spanning the Spectrum

This is my first post in the line of discussing consumer behavior in a critical yet functional way. In order to create a proper room for the following aspects and discussions I intend to span a spectrum between two different views on consumer behavior:

The first view I might call "Suboptimal Consumtion Thesis". In this view, our behavior as consumers shows simply areas in which we can improve the way we buy and consume, may it be that we buy things we do not necessarily need or we buy at a too high price or we could buy things that would satisfy our needs in a better or more sustainable way. It is very rational and calculated way to look at our behavior as consumers and simply has the approach to optimize it in terms of better fitting our - or eventually also society's - needs.

The second view I want to call "Clinical Consumption Thesis". From this point of view, we as consumers are mostly unaware of our true motivations for buying and consuming things. Although we might always find and be able to articulate rational reasons for our behavior, the true reasons are different and have a lot to do with being essentially unable to satisfy other, more important needs. These needs are deep-seated, natural-biological needs that characterize us as human beings and have genuine social connotations. So, for example because we strive for love, appreciation, sex, self-confidence, control, etc. we buy things that give us the illusion of an shortcut to reaching these goals by allowing us to socially self-portray us in a more favorable light (e.g. by conspicuous consumption of luxury goods, trendy brands, well-known fashion etc.).

In order to illustrate these two perspectives a bit better, I want to offer to citations, one for each view. The first citation stems from Sheena Iyengar's book "The Art of Choosing", in which she vividly explains how our culture but also our very own mind influences us in the way we are making decisions of choice:

"We like to think that the free market functions in a way that protects us from inferior or unnecessary products. After all, if the individual brands are all competing with one another, then it seems logical that in order to succeed they must develop superior products that people need. And wouldn't false or exaggerated advertising by one brand be pointed out and refuted by a competitor? Not when colluding with the 'enemy' is more profitable than debunking the whole idea behind the product that you also sell."

Iyengar then goes on pointing out how we in reality have far fewer qulitatively different options than we perceive and how this makes our consumerist freedom of choice more of an illusion than an existing liberty. Especially she tries to prove how we pay too much because of these illusions (e.g. for the same water or cosmetics in different packaging) and that we might just use our reason to "decide to switch to a generic cola and save" some money. Although I appreciate the critical way of thinking reflected by this view, I have my doubts that it really hits the bottom of the problem. My biggest issue with this kind of argumentation is that it does not cope with a huge structural deficit which is underlying our consumerist culture: Because of our extensive craving for "freedom", we have actually morally undermined our markets and made them "indifferent" with regard to any value, and even more: "value-free" in a morally precarious way. This has the effect that as consumers we can only enact our freedom of choice on the ground of comparing the existing offers in a rational way - mostly only by comparing prices rather than real values. The missing alternative offer, which would really satisfy our needs, will most probably not be represented on the market due to either lack of profitability or creativity on the side of the producers. But can we really make the producers alone responsible for this "value gap"? Coming back to Iyengar's advice to switch to generic cola instead of Coke: This example shows perfectly the efficiency of rationality but more so its lack of effectiveness in the absence of values. How does some "cheap generic version" of an unhealthy sugar-drink offer you a better solution than the equally unhealthy original drink other than "saving a few bucks"? Consumer behavior is not only about saving but also - and much more so - about satisfying your needs. And here, your need would most probably be to drink a refreshing but also healthy drink (at least if we are talking about our "evolved consumer" who tries to overcome bad consumer behavior. But is there a common ground for determining what actually is healthy for every consumer? Let's assume for now that there is such a common ground and science might help us to elaborate the values we are looking for. In this case, we could for example rely on evolutionary insights into healthy nutrition, like Steven Platek's highly useful advice, or simply apply our own natural reason and find out that simple tap water might be more healthy than any sugary soft drink, even for an American consumer who regards soft-drinks like Coke as part of her/his very own cultural identity.

But let's get back on track. I promised you another citing for the second view of consumer behavior, the "Clinical Consumption Thesis". For this citation I want to draw on Susan Long's article "The Tyranny of the Customer and the Cost of Consumerism":

"The values of consumerism, it seems, are linked to a view of the independent individual rather than the community. Argued here, however, is, that on the evidence of psychoanalysis, or general social psychology, that this individual is a myth (Stack-Sullivan, 1950; Lacan, 1977). More likely, the subject he or she appears to be is either a person separated from the community in a withdrawn and counterdependent manner, or one who does not recognize the essential relatedness diat embeds them. That is, one who is linked through the role of "provider" or 'consumer' in a relation of mutual perceived advantage, rather than through a pie thora of relations grounded in additional moral bases, such as provided through values of loyalty, devotion, care, etc. Community relations under such an ideology become economic and instrumental rather than developed through shared work where trust is established by means of mutual experience. … Growing globalization and uncertainty about the future leaves people in a vulnerable state in their work organizations. Rather than working through their very real dependencies, many have drawn back to a pseudoindependence aided by the ideologies of the predominant enterprise/consumer discourse. Yet we are at a time in history when interdependence is critical. John Bowlby's (1988) theory of attachment is relevant here. When a child is attached to an important other (say the mother) lengthy separation results in three stages-protest, withdrawal, and finally pseudo-adaptation where the child develops a mistrusting and detached attitude which is hidden by a superficial mode of being in relationships. The final adaptation is fundamentally instrumental."

Long's general point is that we as consumerist societies have collapsed a lot of complex roles into one overly-simplistic form of behavior: "the customer". She argues that along with the decline of large value-based institutions like religion, societies have lost a lot of complex interdependencies between their members and have fled to an economically instrumental form of pseudo-independence, where an individual can narcistically be "customer king". Everything else, including traditional values, has then been gradually eroded and subjected to an economic rationalism which is only interested in an increasing profitability. While this view might certainly have some relevance and bear a lot of brisance for the interpretation of consumer behavior, it neither offers a practical way of improving the classic, freedom-oriented view of our markets nor gives any practical advice for the individual consumer itself. How can he overcome his pitiful role of being a pseudo-independent, anxious narcissist? What about his practical everyday-needs: What does this psycho-analytic view tell him to buy instead of product A? Or should he simply stop buying at all and try to reach an autonomous state by providing his own food all by himself? What other way to deal with all the technical complexities in our globalized world is there if not to devise responsibility, also in the context of buying and consuming decisions, to the individual? Long rightly refers to traditional values like loyalty, devotion and care but fails to tell us how we can properly enact them in our everyday life - as consumers. And even if we manage to somehow overcome our traditional, overly-simplistic consumer-role, how can we live out our role as "evolved consumers" properly? Where and how can we implement our democratic and basic human values into this role? On what knowledge can we draw to identify the concrete value-based guidelines for our informed consumer behavior? And in what relation do we have to place our new roles as "evolved consumer" against our other roles as "citizicens", "employees", "parents", "romantic partners", "friends", ...?