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green is hip: from ego to eco
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green is hip: from ego to eco
Saturday, June 28. 2008
A new green ethos is flowering on the ruins of the
"old" environmental movement that buried itself in
eighties-style gloom-and-doom sermons.
| old | new |
|---|---|
| doom is imminent | positive vibe |
| environmental destruction | ecological awareness |
| ozone hole | climate change |
| Chernobyl | Katrina |
| pollution | cradle to cradle |
| guilt | care |
| an inconvenient truth | yes, we can! |
| politics | business |
Note the ingenious change of spin. No more: you shouldn't do harm. Rather: you can and should do good. The message has become far more attractive and empowering.
from ego to eco
This new green lifestyle trend is nicely illustrated by the
launch of "the world's first green glossy":
Green.2,
now for sale in The Netherlands.
There's an explicit tension between the commercial advertisements (Nuon: cleanest electricity of The Netherlands) and the report on greenwash (Nuon: hypocrites with stupid environmental claims). This awkwardness climaxes in the reported test-drive of "three green juggernauts" (cars):
Fuel consumption and emissions are so low, you can drive each day without compunction, knowing that you're minimizing environmental impact in this clean, but also fast, racing car.
That sounds awfully much like the energy-efficient light bulb
people keep burning all night.... 
There's two ways to reduce guilt feelings about your ecological footprint: one way is to buy greenwash products that make you feel better. That's ego. The other is to make choices that actually reduce your ecological footprint. That's eco.
from greenwash to real change
The key mechanism is called cognitive dissonance: the tension you feel, between your attachment to your current lifestyle, and the knowing that your lifestyle is ultimately unsustainable.
Integrating ethical considerations into consumption patterns, taps into this widespread discontent. A huge potential for change is mobilized by turning previously marginalized concerns into mainstream daily life choices. 21st-century business, not 20th-century politics, becomes the main platform for enacting societal transformation.
The main risk moving forward, is that the momentum for fundamental changes gets lost in a green haze of relentless consumerism. It's up to us to move beyond mere greenwash and embrace real change.
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Guido A.J. Stevens is internet entrepreneur. He holds an MBA and is co-founder and managing director of NFG Net Facilities Group: innovative open source internet solutions.
