- What is responsible consumption?
- Origin of responsible consumption
- Benefits of responsible consumption
- Examples of responsible consumption
- Irresponsible consumption
We explain what responsible consumption is, how it came about, its benefits and examples. Also, irresponsible consumption.
What is responsible consumption?
Responsible consumption or conscious consumption is a model for purchasing goods Y services defended by different ecological, social and political organizations. Its central precept is adoption, while consumers, of a commitment with the working, ecological and moral conditions behind the preparation of what is consumed.
Put more simply, responsible consumption proposes that, when consuming, the humanity You should opt for goods and services that are manufactured within certain ethical parameters, and not simply for the cheapest product.
In general terms, the idea is not to consume those products whose manufacturers and marketers fail to comply with the minimum requirements in terms of environmental conservation, welfare of workers and socioeconomic equality.
Part of the idea that buyers are also jointly responsible for maintaining a specific production model. In other words, by consuming, we would be voluntarily or involuntarily perpetuating a way of doing things that harms people and the ecosystem.
Responsible consumption thus advocates a less passive attitude on the part of consumers, who could exert selective pressure on certain Business and industries, through strategies of boycott, that is, stopping buying their products and / or services.
For this, the slogan "to buy is to vote" is often used, to tell the consumer that he should not buy anything from unscrupulous sectors that would never vote to govern their own country.
Origin of responsible consumption
Responsible consumption emerges as a counterpart of the consumerism unleashed during the 20th century, and of the industrial transnationalization that preceded the globalization; two phenomena that brought enormous dividends to the big capitalists, who privileged the cost effectiveness above the social justice and the preservation of environment.
The effects of this way of doing things became noticeable after a certain time. On the one hand, economic inequalities increased, social and labor within countries. On the other hand, in the whole world, the climate change and the massive loss of biodiversity at planet Earth.
As this happened, what were initially isolated and local claims, by groups with little political and media power, began to gain notoriety.
The 1998 UNDP Human Development Report warned about the unsustainability over time of the current model of industrial development, both in human and ecological terms.
In addition, already at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, the need to promote initiatives of consumption that comply with the environment and allow satisfying the basic needs of most of humanity.
Since then the concept of responsible consumption has continued to gain ground, although there are also those who oppose it or simply consider it utopian.
Benefits of responsible consumption
Responsible consumption is expected to:
- Encourage a more equitable distribution of the world's wealth, given that currently 1% of the world's wealth population accumulates 82% of the total world wealth.
- Promote a work culture that sees workers as Humans worthy, endowed with rights, to whom work should reward and offer improvements in their quality of life, not simply subjecting to conditions of exploitation.
- Encourage respect for the delicate balance of the environment, allowing renewable resources are replenished at a sustainable rate, and operating within the limits of the pollution and the exploitation that allow the subsistence of life and do not threaten global biodiversity.
- Force large transnational capitals to review their business policies and to fight in ethical terms to conquer their clientele, instead of applying monopoly criteria or simply flooding the market with advertising and unfair competition.
- Allow the construction of a model of sustainable development short, medium and long term.
Examples of responsible consumption
As an example of responsible consumption, let us cite some practical guidelines or principles from the point of view of any consumer:
- Before consuming, ask yourself if the product or service is really necessary or if it constitutes a spending superfluous whose benefits do not outweigh the worldwide damage that its manufacture has probably involved.
- Find out about the companies, find out which ones make efforts to carry out their business in a way that respects the environment and society in general, and prefer their products to those of companies that do not.
- Reject excess plastic: plastic bags, straws (straws, straws, straws), cutlery, plates, glasses, packaging, etc., to the minimum necessary, and opt, if any, of biodegradable substitutes.
- Where possible, apply The three r of the ecology: reduce, reuse and Recycle.
- Separate garbage between biodegradable and recyclable, and prioritize returnable to disposable packaging.
- Do not consume products that have been tested in animals or produced through mechanisms of human exploitation or animal abuse.
- Opt for the free software rather than monopolistic variants.
Irresponsible consumption
Contrary to responsible consumption, irresponsible consumption chooses individually not to find out or simply ignore the ethical implications of buying a product or service, when not simply resigning to the fact that the world is like this.
It is a consumption model that favors the ephemeral well-being of consumption, without being interested in what happens during the production chain of what you buy: how many human beings worked under inhuman conditions to do it, how many Non-renewable natural resources they were exploited to do so, and to what extent the environment was harmed by doing so.
Irresponsible consumption may be a happier and more carefree form of consumption, but it is also an immoral form, unsustainable in the medium term.