Ecofficiency pushes for a free and fair market-based consumer system that maximizes positive impacts to our planet.
The fundamental question: Are the impacts associated with producing, shipping, packaging, storing, and disposing of the products, resources, and services we consume worth the benefits they provide us as individuals or to society at large?
"The greatest threat to our planet is thinking someone else will save it"
- Robert Swan
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
- Margaret Mead
Consumer Demand
All humans consume...and it is our consumption that drives the vast majority of our actions. Consumption in industrialized countries generates enormous social and environmental impacts all over the world. While some of these impacts are positive, far too many are negative. The population of the United States is just under 5% of the world's total, yet the US consumes over 25% of the world's resources. The US also operates on a massive trade deficit, meaning that imports from around the world far exceed exports. In order to facilitate this imbalanced consumer model, goods and resources imported into the US are made far cheaper than they should be by ignoring the social and environmental controls that have been demanded and achieved in the US by its citizens. In short, the US consumes way more than its fair share, and produces a massive amount of pollution and negative human impacts along the way.
The European Union is not much different in this regard, and countries such as Japan, Canada, and Australia are well into their march down the same path. As a result, our planet has become divided into consuming nations (the "industrialized" world) and producing nations (the "developing" world). While the developing world largely produces what the industrialized world consumes, overall, they have not seen much benefit from this relationship, and have been left to deal with many consequences of the impacts originating from consumption in the industrialized world.
This can change, and the United States can - and should - take the lead.
Until recently, the impacts resulting from this globally disproportionate consumer / producer relationship have stayed "out of sight and out of mind" to those of us in the industrialized world. This has made it difficult for us as citizens and (especially) consumers to see and understand the impacts we have on the rest of the world. However, with the proliferation of information technology, we have become increasingly exposed to the realities of what is happening around the world. More to the point, however, we are starting to come face to face ourselves with some of the consequences resulting from an imbalanced consumer relationship - consequences such as global economic meltdown, threats of international pandemics, immigration and refugee concerns, transnational crime and conflict, climate change, and terrorism and piracy.
What causes such outcomes to emerge? Certainly it is not because the most adversely affected people around the world are stupid, lazy, or don't care. The reality is that all of the aforementioned outcomes can be traced to an imbalanced consumer model within a globalized economic system. As a whole, this system has largely evolved organically, and while there has certainly been a history of manipulation by agenda driven politicians, economists, and corporate leaders, there has not been any one individual or group of people that can be held solely responsible for these outcomes...other than perhaps the ultimate consumers - that is to say you and I.
We as consumers have incredible power, and the time has come for us as individuals to take control of this power, and use it to productively contribute to solving our world's problems. We can do this! Corporate ideology has proven that it will listen to consumer demand. The only catch is that consumers have to actually demand something; for our purposes - ethical and responsible mechanisms that produce the goods and resources we consume. We cannot afford to sit back and wait for government or industry to undertake these actions. Government is too often bogged down by agenda driven political conflict, frequently preventing meaningful action from taking hold, and business is too driven by short term profit to expect them to initiate any meaningful change on their own - that is to say, without consumers demanding it.
If we, as consumers, are going to help fix these problems, we must educate ourselves about what our relationship is with the world around us, and how we as individuals can consume more responsibly. Then, we must make the commitment to enact necessary changes to our own lives, and what we will support - with our wallets and our votes.