How bad am I? Anonymity at the end.

Alongside last weeks Measurement article, Consumer Identity has been a recent focus in the Endineering work. The difference between beginning and end is astonishing.
The beginning is layered in complex, data driven, celebratory reinforcement, that embeds individual consumer privilege – “Thank you for purchasing, [insertNAME] are a valued customer!”.
At the end consequences are relinquished from the consumer and left for a faceless, faraway victim to endure. This has left consumers experiencing indifference about their personal role in the worlds biggest pollution problems. And why consumer Identity a critical issue for a better, more just future?

Victims without identities
Let’s start with the people who will ultimately deal with the fallout of consumerism – the worlds poorest and least identified. A report by the World Bank found “An estimated 1 billion people worldwide do not have basic ID credentials—including as many as 1 in 4 children and youth whose births have never been registered—and many more have IDs that cannot be trusted because they are poor quality or cannot be reliably verified.” Many of these people will be among the first victims of climate change, in regions that can’t mitigate the coming catastrophe.

Birthday privilege
Beyond the wealth of presents many people experience on their birthday is the cornerstone of consumer identity – a date of birth. From here identity gives access to citizenship, healthcare, and education. Education can lead to knowledge, qualifications, skills and to a job. Then an income, that will provide money into a bank account. Getting money and spending it on stuff can of course be done with cash, but that won’t help your credit rating. Regular income to your bank account, regular spending, then paying back debts all are great for trusting you as a good borrower. Buying more will put you on loyalty databases, that will be shared to other marketers, that will target you within your demographical grouping for promotions as a good potential customer. Much of that targeting coming through subtle cues in social media advertising.
Social media will of course be building more levels of identity. Some can provide a mask when you want to be invisible, especially useful for cowardly twitter trolls. Others help flatter your face with filters and fashion photos. Instagram adds to the layers of identity. If you hit all the algorithms and followers you will be known as an “influencer”, pushing product endorsements with more clicks and more consumption.
Amongst the many layers of identity that establish you, many help endorse you and start your journey as a consumer.

Hiding impact
At the other end of the consumer lifecycle, where responsibility should lay, there is little recognition of identity. Here identity is removed. Responsibility heaped on to society and the environment to deal with.
Whenever a consumer throws a piece of clothing in the trash, no one knows. Whenever a person gets off a 12 hour flight, no one knows. You can impact the world with consumption and be relinquished of ownership instantly.

Hidden effort
But equally, and unjustly, whenever a person chooses to do good they are not recognised for it. People who are vegan and avoid the carbon created by cows, are not recognised. Whenever a person takes the train instead of the plane, they are not recognised. When a person off-sets their carbon, they are not linked to it’s success. Whenever a person removes dated, hateful comments online, no one celebrates.

Comparisons need to be personal
Consumerism is driven by comparisons. Whether that be between this season and last season, or people you know, or celebrities you don’t. These comparisons are often data rich, the latest 8K TV, the best camping gear, the fastest engine, the best strappy sandals of 2022.
Comparisons between consumer and victim are rarer. These are often reduced to national generalisations. As Pakistan grapples with the impact of climate change, the Foreign Minister tries to explain this unfair comparison. "We consistently see climate devastation in the forms of floods, monsoons, extensive droughts, extreme heat waves, and frankly, the people of Pakistan, the citizens of Pakistan, are paying the price in their lives, their livelihoods for the industrialization of rich countries that has resulted in this climate change."⁠
Comparisons are made between countries, but rarely does this get personal to you or I as individual consumers. Therefore it is easy to remove oneself from being directly responsible.

• We need to have identity attached to consumption at the end of the consumer experience.

• This information should be private to the consumer. Similar to bank details that we can share when we need to.

• It should be linkable to common consumer behaviour, for example to an airline. Like if I attached my credit card details to a profile.

• It should be universal, people in other regions of the world should have the same system. So we can break away from the national averages of know our impact.