LOST OPPORTUNITY at the end.
Consumerism is driven by desire. It is emotional wants over practical needs. Because of this, humans have created amazing emotional persuasion tools to help encourage the purchase of things we often don’t need. Advertising and marketing have done an incredible job at this. This success equates to sales. It can also be equated to climate impact.
According to research published at COP in 2021 by Magic Numbers, a data analytics firm and the Purpose Disruptors, a network of advertising insiders working on climate issues (see the workings and data sources >here<), “Advertising adds 28% to the annual carbon footprint of every single person in the UK. Or 186m tonnes of greenhouse gases, equivalent to running 47 coal-fired power plants all year round.” To put that in some sort of perspective the compare it to some other countries carbon impact.
Advertising adds the emotional encouragement that makes us want to purchase at the beginning of the consumer lifecycle. And consequentially impact the environment. Can we use this same argument to measure the lack of emotional engagement at the end of the consumer lifecycle to show the missed opportunity? Many strategies to balance the impact of human activity, particularly consumption, are having less traction than desired. Could this be as a result of not engaging the consumer emotionally at the end?
Lets look at some examples
99% don’t off-set flights.
According to The Guardian the “International Air Transport Association (IATA) says that just 1% of passengers offset their carbon emissions through voluntary programmes.” This is despite widespread availability, legal governance, and the mechanisms to deliver the offset. Why don’t more than 1 in 100 people off-set their flights?
54.3% don’t recycle
According to the BBC “The recycling rate for UK households' waste was 45.7% in 2017.” A small increase on the previous year. Yet, recycling has been available for decades. Everyone is familiar with it’s process and its importance. It has established logistical routes. All the mechanisms are in place. Yet it still has atrociously low levels of take up.
82.6% doesn’t get reclaimed
According to the United Nations “17.4 percent of the 53.6 million tonnes of global ewaste in 2019 was collected and recycled.” Yet many nations have clear legislation about ewaste disposal.
70.9% doesn’t get recycled
According to Coca Cola, they “introduced recyclable 2 litre, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic bottles in 1978.” Which isn’t long after I was born in 1972. I am now 50, and shocked to think that despite having the material capability for nearly half a century, very little of that capability is being used. Just 29.1 percent in 2018 (910,000 tons) was recycled in the US according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Why are these numbers so bad?
The materials are right. The technology achieved. The logistical routes exist. The legislation is in place. Why do consumers fail to do the right thing at the end? The simple answer is because there is no consumer off-boarding experience. Emotional engagement at the beginning is not matched at the end. Resulting in enormous lost opportunities at correcting the problems with consumerism. If these were business figures on product sales, people would be sacked, shops and factories shut down. Humanity has to do better.
Many of the approaches that propose to solve climate impact focus on material matter and manufacturing improvements. We have to look beyond these and towards the well established psychological triggers that inspire engagement at the beginning of the consumer lifecycle. We now need to apply those consumer centric approaches at the end of the consumer lifecycle and grab the opportunities that are on offer. We need to design endings that are emotionally engaging.
