Pious greens and fellow travelers have spent decades propagandizing domestic recycling. They burned a lot of energy, squandered a lot of resources, and alienated large segments of society while turning the majority into sneaks. Recycling gets a lot of lip service, but when all the wastes are counted it has done little to address the target issues.

This is a good example of a repeated phenomenon. Priggish greens nag society to read scripture and sacrifice, but the overwhelming majority continue to live sensibly instead, though they are careful to keep it hidden. They live normal lives but don't do it in the street and scare the horses. They are modern Victorians, chaste in public but raunchy in private, too sensible to fight the power but also too sensible to cooperate with dumb ideas.

Today this is called the 4/40 gap: "roughly 40% of consumers say they're willing to buy greener products, but only 4% actually does" so. It seems to be an eternal truth. When pressured to do dumb things to adhere to some religious or social dogma the behavior continues with greater discretion but undiminished zeal in private.

This isn't news or even mildly interesting. We've all always known this and expect the invariant results. Well, OK, not all of us. There are still naive preachers and true believers that never come to understand what humans are like.

A new publication from the United Nations Environment Programme, Talk the Walk: Advancing Sustainable Lifestyles through Marketing and Communications, attempts to close the 4/40 Gap by promoting the use of mainstream communications and marketing strategies to change consumer attitudes. Say the authors: "The key to overcoming barriers to sustainable consumption while making a profit definitely constitutes the Holy Grail for marketers, with potential for delivering double-digit growth for years to come."

Such bottom-line-enticing come-ons, the authors' earnestness, and the publication's slick graphics notwithstanding, it's a tough sell.

Or, to be blunt, it's another UN boondoggle, a jobs program for government grifters that does absolutely nothing of value. And as usual, it's instrumental, a deceit that disrespects society.

. . . speaking as a corporate communications strategist, Talk the Walk doesn't reveal many secrets -- and the insight it does offer often seems more sinister than sincere. One example is its notion of the "green Trojan horse":

As exemplified by organic and fair-trade products or first hybrid vehicles, the ultimate role of green products in shaping sustainable consumption patterns probably consist in changing consumers' attitudes, building confidence in new solutions or technologies, and acting as a Trojan horse in mainstream groups' marketing approach, to finally contribute to level the playing field, without necessarily going mainstream themselves.

That is to say, "Make consumers be greener in spite of themselves" -- my paraphrase, not theirs.

There are two major problems here. The condescending deceitfulness isn't the only gaffe. Organic and fair-trade products are not green. They don't benefit the environment or improve society in any way. At best they are a wealth transfer from the poorest to the not quite so poor, and the best is seldom achieved. It is more often the rich who gather the profits while the environment as a whole is degraded. Rich people profit and rich land profits at the expense of other land though this is hidden. It's bad economics, bad environmentalism and incompetent social engineering.

But it could be worse.

Ideally, consumer product companies and their customers would engage in a robust conversation about how the former can profitably serve the latter's needs in a way that honors people and the planet -- and not simply sneak greener products into the mainstream. It would involve ads and marketing messages that inform, inspire, and incentivize us to change our buying habits -- and to understand how and why we should.

And it would involve more than just the companies themselves. In a briefing book on sustainable consumption and production that I co-authored a few years ago, we laid out five key strategies that would be necessary to accelerate meaningful change: Increasing consumer awareness and choice; promoting innovative policies; accelerating demand for greener products; demanding corporate accountability; and encouraging sustainable business practices. All of these need to work in concert to address the fundamental issues at hand.

What a load of nonsense. When you unpack the market droid double-Dutch wank-speak this is obvious.

How do you increase consumer choice? The only way is to produce and market varied products. This doesn't need to be encouraged unless it means producing less desirable products that have low consumer acceptance, ones that consumers choose to avoid.

How do you increase consumer awareness? Advertise, but that is increasingly more expensive and less effective as consumer choice increases and market segments differentiate. The hurrier you go the behinder you get.

What does "promoting innovative policies" mean? Absolutely nothing. It's an empty container which each person can fill with whatever they want.

What does "accelerating demand for greener products" mean? It means all of the above. In short - nothing at all.

What does "demanding corporate accountability" mean? Accountable to whom? They are accountable now to their stakeholders and are punished severely when they mess up. A call for accountability is just another empty slogan.

What does "encouraging sustainable business practices" mean and what are "sustainable business practices"? Who decides what is sustainable? For that matter what the heck does sustainable mean? Nothing, absolutely nothing. More empty containers.

What the market droid, Joel Makower, is selling is his services. The amazing bit is that there may be some who are foolish enough to buy this crap. There's one born every minute I hear.

I think the important question here is whether the products of the UN and these market droids are green? They aren't, of course, they are garden variety wasteful consumption, profiteering and wheel spinning that does nothing but enrich the grifters in the biz. Same old, same old. "I want to be a Baptist preacher, so I don't have to work".

» Sustainable business practices from Biopolitical
If you are interested in socially responsible, sustainable lifestyles that include: - Sustainable consumption of green, organic and fair-trade products; - Robust conversations between companies and their consumers; - Honoring the planet; - Cons......[read more]
Tracked: January 16, 2006 02:06 PM