Vegetarianism as sustainable behaviour... we heard a lot of reasons today to become a vegetarian, but in my opinion eating meat is part of a sustainable system.
Grazing and browsing animals are an unmissable link in our agricultural landscape. If we are to maintain biodiversity, and keep up our food production, we should not be vegetarians. We need animals to maintain our grasslands, eat our veggie waste, fertilize our fields, etc.
Then there's a certain amount of hypocrisy in being vegetarian instead of vegan. Because when you use milkproducts the lactating animal had to have a young...and you can't keep them all. So you can feed the dead bodies to the vultures (not too sustainable in my opinion), or eat them. I'm a vegetarian by the way, feeling all hypocrit, but I can't be vegan because of health issues, and don't think that animals are kept in a sufficiently proper way (even in most ecological farming) to eat the meat. So, as soon as I have a backyard there will be a cow for milk...and a calf in the freezer every now and then (poor thing!).
Then most eco-ideas we heard lean on organic farming. But this is a problem. Because large scale organic farming is not sustainable...sorry to destroy the fantasy. In organic farming the soil is treated like a steppic soil, but the UK was no steppe, it was forest, and this means that organic farming causes erosion of soils. And when you're flushing away your soil that's not really sustainable... There are better ways of ecological farming, such as permaculture, carbon farming, etc. But these are rarely applied, which is foolish, because you can increase production with 1000% (yes, really!) from the same piece of land, turn agricultural land into massive carbon sinks, save biodiversity, have a varied diet instead of the boring watery crap nowadays available, not have half of the countries inhabitants working the land to have sufficient food, etc. Many advantages...but it does involve occasional meat-eating ;-)
vrijdag 4 december 2009
donderdag 12 november 2009
330 Million breads thrown away
Today's primetime news reports 330 million breads are thrown away each year in the Netherlands. What an amazing amount! The centre for advice on food consumption and the bakery's start a campaign to reduce the waste. About half of the bread is thrown away at home, and the other half is send back by the supermarkets to the bakery's. The bakery's recycle a part of the bread (breadcrumps, animal food), and plan to innovate to recycle more by producing bio-energy, paper and plactic, and produce new raw material to bake fresh bread...
After some google-ing found that each kilo of food thrown away is 15.000L water and 1L fuel wasted as well...something to think about!
After some google-ing found that each kilo of food thrown away is 15.000L water and 1L fuel wasted as well...something to think about!
woensdag 4 november 2009
Carrotmob
View the video, 'how organized consumer purchasing can change business'. About the effectivity in the long term one can have doubts, but at least it's a funny video :-)
www.carrotmob.org
www.carrotmob.org
dinsdag 27 oktober 2009
Slow Food International
For the case study presentation I chose Slow Food International. As a counterpart of fast food, the slow food campaign promotes locally produced food and a lifestyle to appreciate the origin and consumption of food. It’s completely linked into sustainability and equity issues. Moreover I think that by producing and consuming a wider diversity of foods, farmlands become more diverse which will be beneficial for the conservation of biodiversity and at a larger scale ecosystem services.
For more information about Slow Food International, please visit http://www.slowfood.com/ or come and hear my presentation :-)
Thought for a moment about addressing the Club of Rome for the presentation. This week they prepare the Declaration of Amsterdam, and they will advice for profound changes in the economy, the use of sustainable resources and strong politics. For more information see http://www.clubofrome.org/eng/home/.
For more information about Slow Food International, please visit http://www.slowfood.com/ or come and hear my presentation :-)
Thought for a moment about addressing the Club of Rome for the presentation. This week they prepare the Declaration of Amsterdam, and they will advice for profound changes in the economy, the use of sustainable resources and strong politics. For more information see http://www.clubofrome.org/eng/home/.
donderdag 22 oktober 2009
Advertising sustainable consumption
Do you think better advertising will be enough to bring about sustainable consumption? What effect do adverts have on your consumption behaviour?
Better advertising alone will not be enough to enhance sustainable consumption. I think people need examples of sustainable consumption in their direct surroundings. However, targeted advertising could work, especially in places where decisions about consumption are made: in stores and at home.
In supermarkets unsustainable products can be tagged with photos and texts showing/ telling what damage the product does to the environment: e.g. photos of factory farming animals in distress or burning rainforests. Also the real price including environmental and social costs can be put on the products, without actually asking this price yet.
To promote sustainable consumption at home people could receive a package of stickers or something, to put at light switches, water taps, heaters, etc. Some time ago a campaign in the Netherlands called ‘Here’ was run, using all kind of media commercials and sending information and stickers to people’s homes. The aim was to raise awareness about climate change and give specific actions for people to act more climate friendly. The stickers were simple but had attractive design, and once put somewhere repeatedly reminds you to carry out specific behaviour. More information is available at www.hier.nu (also English version of the site available).
The effects of advertising on me...well, first of all adverts usually tell me that I’m an unfashionable elephant, can’t appreciate that really ;-) Generally I don’t identify myself with the people, products or messages in adverts so they only have little effect on me. They rarely make me buy more than I planned for. However when new sustainable products are promoted I quite often do try the product.
Also I had the pleasure of spending some time in the middle of nowhere, where no TV, radio, internet, electricity or whatever things we assume to need in develop countries these days were present. And I must say that it is extremely relaxing not to have this constant information flow through all kind of messages all the time. I wouldn’t miss advertising.
Better advertising alone will not be enough to enhance sustainable consumption. I think people need examples of sustainable consumption in their direct surroundings. However, targeted advertising could work, especially in places where decisions about consumption are made: in stores and at home.
In supermarkets unsustainable products can be tagged with photos and texts showing/ telling what damage the product does to the environment: e.g. photos of factory farming animals in distress or burning rainforests. Also the real price including environmental and social costs can be put on the products, without actually asking this price yet.
To promote sustainable consumption at home people could receive a package of stickers or something, to put at light switches, water taps, heaters, etc. Some time ago a campaign in the Netherlands called ‘Here’ was run, using all kind of media commercials and sending information and stickers to people’s homes. The aim was to raise awareness about climate change and give specific actions for people to act more climate friendly. The stickers were simple but had attractive design, and once put somewhere repeatedly reminds you to carry out specific behaviour. More information is available at www.hier.nu (also English version of the site available).
The effects of advertising on me...well, first of all adverts usually tell me that I’m an unfashionable elephant, can’t appreciate that really ;-) Generally I don’t identify myself with the people, products or messages in adverts so they only have little effect on me. They rarely make me buy more than I planned for. However when new sustainable products are promoted I quite often do try the product.
Also I had the pleasure of spending some time in the middle of nowhere, where no TV, radio, internet, electricity or whatever things we assume to need in develop countries these days were present. And I must say that it is extremely relaxing not to have this constant information flow through all kind of messages all the time. I wouldn’t miss advertising.
zaterdag 17 oktober 2009
'green' your friends
What do you think needs to be done to encourage people to consume more sustainably?
Just thinking about my friends, family and other people around me, I think that awareness that they should live sustainable, and should change lifestyles is present. However most of them do not really know what is unsustainable about the products they consume. Also there is some resistance to the idea of buying fair-trade or organic products because there’s still an image of crazy treehuggers around this which is not considered to be cool.
For me the strongest motivators to buy sustainable products are my close friends, and I suppose I am like this for them. Most of my friends care about nature, or at least about animals. By sharing ideas and new information we picked up, we are ‘greening’ each other. Also knowing that we are all relatively ‘green’, helps to keep making sustainable choices because it feels like you’re part of a group.
How does this reflect on this week’s blog topic? I think people need an example, and I think sustainable consumption should be promoted by positive action-oriented messages. People should be inspired to live sustainable. Living sustainable should be something fun.
Just thinking about my friends, family and other people around me, I think that awareness that they should live sustainable, and should change lifestyles is present. However most of them do not really know what is unsustainable about the products they consume. Also there is some resistance to the idea of buying fair-trade or organic products because there’s still an image of crazy treehuggers around this which is not considered to be cool.
For me the strongest motivators to buy sustainable products are my close friends, and I suppose I am like this for them. Most of my friends care about nature, or at least about animals. By sharing ideas and new information we picked up, we are ‘greening’ each other. Also knowing that we are all relatively ‘green’, helps to keep making sustainable choices because it feels like you’re part of a group.
How does this reflect on this week’s blog topic? I think people need an example, and I think sustainable consumption should be promoted by positive action-oriented messages. People should be inspired to live sustainable. Living sustainable should be something fun.
vrijdag 16 oktober 2009
Book choice: Ecovillages, new frontiers for sustainability
For the book review I chose 'Ecovillages: new frontiers for sustainability', by Jonathan Dawson, first published in 2006. The book covers a wide range of topics, explaining what the concept is about and what the potential is for the future.
I think the ecovillage movement started more or less with the development of permacultures (type of ecological farming), and then was more and more developed as a whole lifestyle with ecocommunies that now are connected in the global ecovillages network. It covers all aspects for a sustainable lifestyle from food production, to community currencies, ecobuilding, waste management, local governance, equity, etc.
Don't know much about it, but this assignment is a good chance to get into it. I'm very interested in permacultures such as agroforestry, but I thought just food production is too much of a narrow scope for this assignment. The book covers permacultures, but places it in the context of the whole ecovillages concept. It is not an extensive book however, and this hopefully enables me to review it in depth and link it to other literature as well.
I think the ecovillage movement started more or less with the development of permacultures (type of ecological farming), and then was more and more developed as a whole lifestyle with ecocommunies that now are connected in the global ecovillages network. It covers all aspects for a sustainable lifestyle from food production, to community currencies, ecobuilding, waste management, local governance, equity, etc.
Don't know much about it, but this assignment is a good chance to get into it. I'm very interested in permacultures such as agroforestry, but I thought just food production is too much of a narrow scope for this assignment. The book covers permacultures, but places it in the context of the whole ecovillages concept. It is not an extensive book however, and this hopefully enables me to review it in depth and link it to other literature as well.
vrijdag 9 oktober 2009
Making gross national happiness indexes objective
Gross domestic product or gross national happiness? What should governments be striving for, and how?
Governments should strive for gross national happiness, because it is the government’s task to take care of the citizens: Citizens give up a part of their freedom so that the government can provide a safe and stable environment for everyone in the country. Obviously well-being consists of more than money, as we saw today during the practical. Great to hear all the experiences and ideas, truly inspiring!
Gross domestic product is a clearly defined measure that makes it easy to compare countries. But it excludes all kind of measures that greatly contribute to well-being, although I don’t think GDP originally was meant as an overall measure to compare well-being. It was an indicator for life standard, not an absolute measure for well-being. GDP is an indicator for consumption in a country, and since we can expect an optimal consumption rate (see Tim Jackson’s article for this week) maybe an optimal GDP can be measured. Just as a transition to another proxy for welfare...
By the way, why are we comparing GDP’s? Why do we want to know how much money we make compared to other countries? I’m sure the MBA students have an answer to that...
Anyway, the definition of well-being differs per country. Every culture defines happiness differently. Even within nations these differences can be found, just thinking about a discussion I had yesterday about different lifestyles of urban people and country people. Also the definition of well-being evolves continuously. At the moment prosperity in western cultures is having loads of material stuff, but in some countries having much food and growing fat is prosperity, and surely there are more examples. In western society a health trend has been going on for years already, maybe being healthy is the most important signal of welfare in some time...
Getting back to my first statement that governments should take care of the citizens, it is not enough to know how much inhabitants consume, they should also know if they feel good. But is it possible to develop a well-being index that can replace the GDP? Well-being values may be hard to measure as it comprises both objective and subjective indicators. Maybe it is possible to find objective indicators to add to the subjective ones.
Just doing a brainstorm on things that are important for people and try to put some objective indicators on it:
- Health; average age, number of diseased per 1000 inhabitants (could pick a mix of typical diseases related to poverty and welfare to see if there is too much or too little to consume)
- Safety; crime numbers like number of murders, robberies, etc. related to number of inhabitants
- Sufficient food and drinks; suppose one could add the value of all food/drinks sold and divide it by number of inhabitants, but that wouldn’t include subsistence farming which is still big in many countries. Relative price of a bread, or a couple of more or less similar basic products that are used all over the world?
- Friends and family; Seems really difficult to measure objectively...Hours per year spend on caring for friends and family? Hours or number of events spend with friends and family for leisure?
- Recognition and acceptance by community/ society; Engagement in political parties, hours of voluntary work per year
Feel free to brainstorm along :-)
Governments should strive for gross national happiness, because it is the government’s task to take care of the citizens: Citizens give up a part of their freedom so that the government can provide a safe and stable environment for everyone in the country. Obviously well-being consists of more than money, as we saw today during the practical. Great to hear all the experiences and ideas, truly inspiring!
Gross domestic product is a clearly defined measure that makes it easy to compare countries. But it excludes all kind of measures that greatly contribute to well-being, although I don’t think GDP originally was meant as an overall measure to compare well-being. It was an indicator for life standard, not an absolute measure for well-being. GDP is an indicator for consumption in a country, and since we can expect an optimal consumption rate (see Tim Jackson’s article for this week) maybe an optimal GDP can be measured. Just as a transition to another proxy for welfare...
By the way, why are we comparing GDP’s? Why do we want to know how much money we make compared to other countries? I’m sure the MBA students have an answer to that...
Anyway, the definition of well-being differs per country. Every culture defines happiness differently. Even within nations these differences can be found, just thinking about a discussion I had yesterday about different lifestyles of urban people and country people. Also the definition of well-being evolves continuously. At the moment prosperity in western cultures is having loads of material stuff, but in some countries having much food and growing fat is prosperity, and surely there are more examples. In western society a health trend has been going on for years already, maybe being healthy is the most important signal of welfare in some time...
Getting back to my first statement that governments should take care of the citizens, it is not enough to know how much inhabitants consume, they should also know if they feel good. But is it possible to develop a well-being index that can replace the GDP? Well-being values may be hard to measure as it comprises both objective and subjective indicators. Maybe it is possible to find objective indicators to add to the subjective ones.
Just doing a brainstorm on things that are important for people and try to put some objective indicators on it:
- Health; average age, number of diseased per 1000 inhabitants (could pick a mix of typical diseases related to poverty and welfare to see if there is too much or too little to consume)
- Safety; crime numbers like number of murders, robberies, etc. related to number of inhabitants
- Sufficient food and drinks; suppose one could add the value of all food/drinks sold and divide it by number of inhabitants, but that wouldn’t include subsistence farming which is still big in many countries. Relative price of a bread, or a couple of more or less similar basic products that are used all over the world?
- Friends and family; Seems really difficult to measure objectively...Hours per year spend on caring for friends and family? Hours or number of events spend with friends and family for leisure?
- Recognition and acceptance by community/ society; Engagement in political parties, hours of voluntary work per year
Feel free to brainstorm along :-)
dinsdag 6 oktober 2009
Does business have a duty to promote sustainable consumption?
Business played the main role in shaping the society as it is these days, so I think they have an obligation to make things right.
First of all it is business’ obligation to be fair and transparent about the impact of their product. What is the social impact? What is the ecological impact? What are the real costs of the product? It is business’ obligation to raise awareness about the true impacts of products. The least they can do is present this information in a way that everyone can get to it and understand the information.
Second they should implement law and legislation that further enhances sustainability. Additionally they should actively discuss with government institutions, consumers etc how law, legislations and incentives can be adjusted/ brought into being to make production and consumption sustainable.
Third, they should be examples of sustainable consumption. Meaning that they should work only with suppliers that deliver sustainable products. And promote sustainable consumption within their companies; raise awareness among shareholders and employees.
Fourth, they could give consumers more options. Alongside the current non-sustainable products they could develop sustainable alternatives or develop sustainable products that are not material but service-based. By promoting the sustainable alternatives over the non-sustainable they can shift towards sustainable production and consumption. However in the long term they should not promote consumption at all, since it is promotion of consumerism that caused the current social and environmental problems.
Having this written, it is only fair to state that businesses are restricted in their ability to change the current system. One can’t expect of individual businesses to take the lead completely on their own with high risk of bankruptcy, they are also just people trying to make a living. It is a responsibility of everyone to consume sustainable, every individual, community, individual business, institution, etc.
Governments for example should set the framework for sustainable production and consumption. They should oblige all businesses to produce sustainable within a set timeframe. That way consumers can only consume sustainable products, and for businesses it is more fair since all business have to meet the same laws and legislations. Government could even come up with incentives for companies that implement sustainable production methods faster.
Ultimately I think the consumer has to change society by choosing to consume less and consume sustainable. The change has to come from within.
First of all it is business’ obligation to be fair and transparent about the impact of their product. What is the social impact? What is the ecological impact? What are the real costs of the product? It is business’ obligation to raise awareness about the true impacts of products. The least they can do is present this information in a way that everyone can get to it and understand the information.
Second they should implement law and legislation that further enhances sustainability. Additionally they should actively discuss with government institutions, consumers etc how law, legislations and incentives can be adjusted/ brought into being to make production and consumption sustainable.
Third, they should be examples of sustainable consumption. Meaning that they should work only with suppliers that deliver sustainable products. And promote sustainable consumption within their companies; raise awareness among shareholders and employees.
Fourth, they could give consumers more options. Alongside the current non-sustainable products they could develop sustainable alternatives or develop sustainable products that are not material but service-based. By promoting the sustainable alternatives over the non-sustainable they can shift towards sustainable production and consumption. However in the long term they should not promote consumption at all, since it is promotion of consumerism that caused the current social and environmental problems.
Having this written, it is only fair to state that businesses are restricted in their ability to change the current system. One can’t expect of individual businesses to take the lead completely on their own with high risk of bankruptcy, they are also just people trying to make a living. It is a responsibility of everyone to consume sustainable, every individual, community, individual business, institution, etc.
Governments for example should set the framework for sustainable production and consumption. They should oblige all businesses to produce sustainable within a set timeframe. That way consumers can only consume sustainable products, and for businesses it is more fair since all business have to meet the same laws and legislations. Government could even come up with incentives for companies that implement sustainable production methods faster.
Ultimately I think the consumer has to change society by choosing to consume less and consume sustainable. The change has to come from within.
Intro
Please allow me to introduce myself first. I’m a master student in Applied ecology and conservation. My main interest is nature in its broadest sense. I have a holistic view on conservation, I believe that human society requires stable biodivers ecosystems to live healthy, pleasant and satisfactory lives in the long term. In my opinion nature should be widely integrated into society, people should not be disconnected to nature.
In order to bring people back in touch with nature, and to enhance nature conservation, a mentality change is required. A move from consumption society to a conservation society is necessary: true sustainability is a precondition for nature conservation. In this module, sustainable consumption, I hope to learn about how a mentality change can be initiated.
What I find interesting is the motives of people to live their lives the way they do. Why do people consider making money and consuming a lot so important? Why do they choose to stick to this system? Why not stop for a moment, and reconsider what is really important in a human life? Why do people measure success in life by the amount of material they collected?
One may wonder why I named this blog ‘Move to wonderland’. Don’t worry, I don’t believe in fairytales ;-) What I mean is that individuals can choose to live (and consume) differently, joining with other likeminded people they can start a movement, moving towards a better and more sustainable world.
In order to bring people back in touch with nature, and to enhance nature conservation, a mentality change is required. A move from consumption society to a conservation society is necessary: true sustainability is a precondition for nature conservation. In this module, sustainable consumption, I hope to learn about how a mentality change can be initiated.
What I find interesting is the motives of people to live their lives the way they do. Why do people consider making money and consuming a lot so important? Why do they choose to stick to this system? Why not stop for a moment, and reconsider what is really important in a human life? Why do people measure success in life by the amount of material they collected?
One may wonder why I named this blog ‘Move to wonderland’. Don’t worry, I don’t believe in fairytales ;-) What I mean is that individuals can choose to live (and consume) differently, joining with other likeminded people they can start a movement, moving towards a better and more sustainable world.
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