In Business, Creating Sustainable Enterprises & Communities

Environmental Impact Of What We Buy And Use

In Business, July-August, 2005, Vol. 27, No. 4, p. 30

A special journal issue reports on the pivotal role that consumption has in shaping the quality of our lives.

THE CONNECTION between consumption and environmental impact is analyzed in the latest issue of the Journal of Industrial Ecology (Winter/Spring 2005). Articles cover such basics as diet change, time use, size of houses, product life cycles and reduced work time. Techniques that are the core of industrial ecology “help us to understand much better the pivotal role consumption plays in shaping the quality of our environment," stresses Reid Lifset, the Journal's editor-in-chief.
The fundamental challenge of our generation is finding a way to reconcile economic development with the limited biological and mineral resources available on a small planet, explains Edgar Hertwich of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology who served as editor of the issue. “A successful implementation of sustainable consumption and sustainable livelihoods is needed to achieve sustainable development," he writes in the opening editorial. “We need to reduce the impact of the affluent, while providing dignifying conditions to the world's poorest population.”
Reflecting on product life spans and the “throwaway society,” Tim Cooper of the United Kingdom's Center for Sustainable Consumption at Sheffield Hallam University, points out that municipal waste in industrialized countries has been increasing at around the same rate as economic growth - around 40 percent over the past 30 years. There is an overpowering need to develop meaningful “life-cycle thinking” - to use a cradle-to-grave approach. Life-cycle thinking from an environmental perspective, says Cooper, considers the sequence of raw materials extraction, manufacturing, distribution, use and disposal.

IMPACT OF DIETARY CHOICES
In her analysis of “Sustainable Consumption of Food," Faye Duchin of the Economics Department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute describes the integration of life-cycle assessment methods with a new input-output model of the world economy to analyze effects of alternative future diets. There is the reported inefficiency of resource use involved in converting grain to livestock when the grain could instead be eaten directly. In recent years, there has been increasing analysis of agricultural systems in relation to diets as well as on environmental impacts. The most important dietary distinctions are between meat-based and plant-based diets as well as the different ways that foods are grown, processed and transported.
The predominantly plant-based Mediterranean diet provided the original prototype for official dietary guidelines in the United States and many other countries, notes Duchin. It is low in meat, rich in fresh fruits and vegetables, low in added sugar and salty snacks, and low in saturated fatty acids.
Concludes Duchin: A global shift to a Mediterranean type or other plant-based diet could be expected to have more favorable impact on the environment and on health. Analyses of alternative scenarios for future diets and for how and where the crops and food are produced and consumed could provide a basis for engaging major government, corporate and society stakeholders in productive dialogue with an emphasis on action. “Such an outcome could help promote the cause of improved public health while also advancing the case for changes in consumption behavior to reduce environmental deterioration," she sums up.

FROM WATER USE IN CHINA TO ENERGY USE IN SWEDEN
Research published in this special issue of the Journal of Industrial Ecology includes evaluation of water use in China, energy use in Sweden, risks from exposure to scented consumer products, analyzing household metabolism in Europe, and impact of house size on the concept of “small is beautiful."
The strategies that advocacy groups use to influence global production and consumption are explored along with the “rebound effect” - the possibility that reduced purchase of one set of products can, by saving the consumer money, lead to increased consumption of other goods and services (with their attendant environmental effects).
According to Lifset, this research represents a broadening of the scope of environmental concern that has traditionally focused on the impact of production-related activities such as emissions from factory smokestacks. “It also takes quantification beyond simple rules of thumb - How big is the footprint of households taken as a whole? Which activities are the most damaging?
“The research in this special issue is a striking advance,” says Gus Speth, dean of the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. “It takes the understanding of consumption and the environment well beyond the platitudes and bromides that have dominated previous discussions by exploring the role of consumption in a systematic and quantitative way.” The Journal of Industrial Ecology is a quarterly on industry and the environment, owned by Yale University and published by The MIT Press.