Degrowth: shifting purpose and employees to a better end.
As climate change becomes more real everyday we need to ask harder questions on the norms of our lifestyles. Many people are starting to see the need for degrowth, but business leaders are questioning how they do that and still add value to their consumer product experience. How do we refocus all those businesses to do better and grow less? It’s a big ask.
Bias Benevolence
Charity is said to begin at home, but it might be more accurate to say that it begins with a sale. It’s often at the point of purchase that a consumer finds it easiest to behave benevolently. Can we say the same about the end? Do we care as much about who dismantles our electronics, processes our waste, or recycles our plastic? Or do we find our charities surrendered to a consumption cycle like everything else.
The rabbit hole is endless scroll. There are no bunnies at the bottom, just more hole.
There is something poetically appropriate about endless scroll and its role in consumption. Where other versions of consumerism have certainly aimed for an infinite delivery of a product or services to the consumer. None have succeeded to balance the content so well with the distribution method. Endless Scroll is the High-fructose corn syrup of your social brain, served through lit screen until your battery dies or you emotionally break under the strain of FOMO.
You can’t do don’t. Endineering your EPR
Extended Producer Responsibilities (EPR) is an environmental regulation that came in to force in France and Germany in 2022 and will probably be rolled out elsewhere. It places the responsibility on producers for the entire lifecycle of the product including waste collection and recycling. 1
Pardon me while I yawn and imagine another meaningless symbol on some packaging. Imagining another invisible back door logistical solution. And imagine millions of confused consumers, who just want to do the right thing. Is EPR going to be a consumer experience? Will it be actionable by the consumer?