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March 2003 - Consumption.

In this issue:

Editorial

Status and trends for Sustainable Consumption

• Some facts about consumption
• The reign of multinationals
• Humans defined as consumers
• Marketers are banking on "Peace of Mind"
• Consumer activism rises

Information: the way to sustainable consumption

• Do we look like lab rats?
• Putting an end to misleading labels

Patients: some of the most vulnerable consumers

• The right to health
• Creating appropriate healthcare: schools for good living

Case stories

• Eco-cosmetics on the upswing
• Young Dane denounces greed in consumption
• There's money in producing what consumers hate

Features

• WTO rules hinder sustainable consumption
• The happy consumer: a marketer's Catch 22

Calendar

• Two spring courses on CSR (MC 301 & Bus 302)

One must live simply so that others may simply live
- Gandhi

Editorial

"It is time that we realised that organic food is not simply a ‘lifestyle’ choice, but a matter of life over death.”
- Moyra Bremner, The Ecologist Jan. 2003

This issue of ICIS News is dedicated to consumption issues.

Four pieces of news affected this decision:
First of all, the latest report that breast milk is not as healthy as everyone has claimed. In fact breast milk, according to the latest research, can be positively dangerous to newborn children, as mothers pick up pollutants in the environment and pass these on through the breast milk to the baby… (Source: Politiken, February 6, 2003).

Secondly, an article published in The Ecologist about the foods we eat, pesticides and GMO’s, shows that pesticides have been linked to horrific birth defects, suicidal depression and infertility (The Ecologist, Jan. 2003). We are unfortunately only allowed to reproduce the article if we use the entire text, which is rather long. But we suggest you go and read more on www.theecologist.org – food for thought!

Thirdly, there was a news item about recent research on HRT, hormone replacement therapy, for women like me. According to the Danish magazine Viva there are many more risks involved in taking hormone replacement therapy than going through the discomfort of hot flushes - i.e. high blood pressure, higher risk of breast cancer, heart attacks are just a few of the side-effects. It is recommended that only women who suffer severe menopausal symptoms should consider using HRT, which unfortunately has been and is being prescribed by doctors at a mere request.

The fourth piece of news was a small notice in the International Herald Tribune (March 5, 2003) about the US Environmental Protection Agency’s findings that “children younger than two face a tenfold risk of cancer if they are exposed to some (mutagens)”. This is due to the increase in pollutants in the environment and in the food children eat.

In short: many of the things we take for granted or think are ok and safe for our families and ourselves, turn out to be unsafe and risky business. We therefore need to re-evaluate and rethink the way we live to remedy this situation – and no stop taking anything for granted.

We believe that consumers have the power to change the face of the world. If the majority decides to ‘buy green’ - and wherever possible local produce - ethical businesses and ecological agriculture are likely to soar to previously unknown heights.
If patients opt for alternative treatments and natural medicine, they can strike the patent-based monopolies of the medicinal industry a deathly blow, while paving the way for preventive health measures and natural healthcare across the globe.

How do we, as consumers, find access to truthful information about the products we buy? How can we take action, make a difference? Who can support us? What is the status of sustainable consumption, and what will it take to carry it one step further? In this newsletter, we will try to provide some answers and open up new avenues for thought to keep you in the picture, encourage vigilance and emphasise the importance of applying the precautionary principle in our everyday lives.

The peacemarch on 15th February where 30 million people went on the streets around the world in a joint
purpose showed us what we can achieve if we want to. Showing - by doing - what we believe in and affecting a change in policy and behaviour is possible and in fact very easy.

Lets do more!

Kind regards
Karen Blincoe
Director, ICIS

Status and trends for Sustainable Consumption

• Some facts about consumption

- as found in the ANPED report of the Northern Alliance for Sustainability: www.anped.org/pdf/4spacsb99.pdf
Positives:
In most industrialized countries, continued progress has been achieved in reducing energy and material consumption per unit of production.
Renewable energy, though still providing only a small share of commercial energy, is becoming an important growth market, particularly in developing countries.
Negatives:
Consumption of energy and natural resources is growing steadily, since the improvement in efficiency per unit of production has been offset by increases in the volume of production and consumption, leading to continued increases in total energy and materials consumed.
Since the 1970s, the global car fleet has been growing by 16 million cars per year.
Global food production and consumption grew faster than population growth as a result of improved crop varieties, production techniques and the increased use of fertilisers.
Meat consumption per capita has increased, as has the world’s livestock population.
Global fish production has increased, though the growth rates of fish production and consumption of recent decades will probably not be sustained, because of over-fishing, pollution, and disturbance of marine habitats.

As found in The Ecologist, (January 2003), and according to new figures from the Soil Association: www.soilassociation.org
Positives:
The amount of organic land in the UK has almost doubled over the last year, and is now nearly three times the size of greater London.
Almost 80 per cent of (UK) households are buying/have bought organic food.
There are now nearly 4,000 licensed organic farms in the UK.

• The reign of multinationals

Susan George, Vice-President of Attac, says: “The 200 largest multinationals represent 25 percent of all measurable wealth in the world and do not answer to anyone except their shareholders. The world’s 6,000 multinationals employ less than one percent of the workforce, and pay very few taxes, if at all, thanks to tax-shelter schemes. Nevertheless, all commercial deals are made to meet their needs, because they are always present at the negotiation table.”
See also Ross Jackson’s feature in this newsletter.
Source: Politiken, February 2003

• Reducing Humans to Consumers

In the article "Violent Times," grass roots leader Vandana Shiva asks: ‘Could the coercive imposition of a consumer culture worldwide be the invisible cage against which people are rebelling? Could the violence characterising human societies in the new millennium be linked with the violent structures and institutions we have created to reduce society to markets, and humans to consumers?’ In these two sentences, she sums up the issue of commercial globalisation as a possible source of social unrest. To read more about this view, see Resurgence magazine may/June 2002, source of the above quote.

• Marketers are banking on “peace of mind”

According to Melinda Davis, founder of the Next Group, “peace of mind has become the ultimate consumer good. Which means that marketers must become healers.” In an article posted on www.fastcompany.com, Bill Breen zeroes in on real differentiation as residing “not in the product itself but in how you collaborate with the consumer’s need to heal.” He notes that “some advertisers are already offering up a kind of superficial, tranquillity-theme-park response to our newest, biggest consumer need ... This is pretty superficial, but it shows that we are taking tentative steps into a new era: the era of state-of-mind marketing.”
Source: www.fastcompany.com

ICIS view: “Peace of mind” sounds like a more benign marketing strategy than the formerly operational credo of “status and power”. It remains to be seen whether this ‘new’ consumer need may become just another avenue for marketers to steer consumer minds. The ‘era of state-of-mind marketing’, although it still potentially bears the mark of subliminal manipulation, may at least require some form of respect and understanding for real consumer needs versus “marketer-created” desires.

• Consumer activism rises

For an increasing number of people, consumption is not all about accumulating goods and services. It’s also about supporting the issues they have at heart, and taking their lives in their own hands. The Green Guide Institute reports that “more and more, consumers are asking not just about a product - its price, quality and availability - but where and how it was made. Their concerns are the underlying cost - the social, environmental and health implications of its manufacture, distribution, use and disposal.” To meet consumer needs for more information, organisations like the Green Guide, Co-op America and eco-labels.org provide extensive data on the companies behind the brands, as well as on manufacturing processes, distribution and other interesting pieces of background information. Green goods supplier Gaiam operates under the credo of: ‘Simple changes make a difference’, echoing their customers’ increasing desire to purchase ethically and reduce the societal and environmental impact of their consumption habits.
Source: www.thegreenguide.com/reports/

Information

• Do we look like lab rats?

It would seem so, judging by the increasing quantity of untested additives, flavourings, synthetic components and genetically manipulated foods which we are - unknowingly - exposed to, like lambs on the sacrificial altar of science and business. How can this be happening?

One reason for our innocent submission to this treatment is the food industry’s resistance to adequate food labelling and testing. The USA, Canada and Argentina - the world’s largest GE (genetically engineered) food producers - are for example consistently blocking any attempts at passing a labelling policy for GE foods, even though their citizens want it (see Greenpeace press releases at: http://archive.greenpeace.org/~geneng).

In the USA, an important element in the equation is the “two-way flow of high-level personnel between government circles and the biotech industry,” as described in the article 'Crude Food' (Resurgence magazine, number 199). In the book Genetic Engineering, Food and our Environment, Luke Anderson gives numerous examples of “ex-government officials sitting on the board of Monsanto and ex-biotech people in influential positions in the Food and Drug administration.” (Resurgence, number 199)

How are consumers to have any say in things if the instigators of genetic engineering are moving from biotech labs to government and back? The answer is information, followed by choice.

A conference report by the ANPED, the Northern Alliance for Sustainability, cites proper consumer information is one of the tools to help promote sustainable consumption patterns and dismantle “the propaganda system of disinformation through current education/advertising - creating desires, perceptions, values and behaviour - shaping so-called ‘demand’.” (Source: www.anped.org).

• Putting an end to misleading labels

Consumer organisations welcome the EU’s decision to propose a series of new regulations which will curb the misleading labelling of food products. Generally, the law proposal would ban claims that “refer to general, unspecified beneficial effects, which ensure well being and good health in a broad sense.” Slogans such as “90 percent fat-free” will also be prohibited. EU-representatives explain that such labelling implies that the product is low-fat, even though the percentage of fat may be considered high for the product in its specific category. An early reaction from the CIAA (the food industry’s European association) calls the proposal unacceptable and pleads that, when there is sufficient scientific evidence, producers must be able to use health-related labelling (ICIS view: who wants to depend on the food industry’s own findings?) In the near future, the EU parliament will pass a proposal to increase the amount of information on the labels of industrial food products. Even small quantities of known allergens will have to be listed. The EU commission has requested a detailed investigation into consumer reactions to product information labels. Civil servants deem this investigation likely to result in an overhaul of the EU’s labelling regulations, specifically geared toward increasing consumers’ understanding of what they eat and how, as well as ensuring that food producers provide nutrient information on all of their products. David Byrne, EU Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection, was quoted as saying: “It is not my intention to tell people what to eat ... but it is my intention to ensure that they are sufficiently well-informed.”
Source: Børsen, February 10, 2003

ICIS view: Although the initiative is welcome, it’s too early to sigh with relief at the apparent protection of the EU regarding food production and distribution. Greenpeace has issued a press release stating that the EU tried to keep a January 2002 report on the co-existence of GE and non-GE crops secret “because it was afraid of (the report’s) political implications”. It turns out that placing GE crops near non-GE crops “requires complicated and costly measures to avoid contamination ... and both organic and conventional farmers would probably be forced to stop saving seed and instead buy certified seed, because of the increased risk of GE impurity for seeds that have been exposed to field contamination.” Source: http://archive.greenpeace.org/~geneng

• The meaning of hand-made goods

Craftsmanship is alive, and doing well. We may have thought that handmade products would slowly make way for the perfect slickness of globally produced goods S<caron> but the truth is that crafts are increasingly in demand on the international market. In an article in Resurgence magazine, David Boyle notes the "rediscovery of European crafts, because of the fact that every piece has an individual touch, in a world where everything else seems mass-produced."

Some of the traditional luxury crafts (crystals, champagne and porcelain for example) have always been status symbols - but there is also an upward trend for the sale of more humble crafts, and a revival of old-fashioned craft traditions, especially in Europe. According to a 2001 Business Week survey, crafts seemed to gain value where well-known mega brands (Coca-Cola, Nike, McDonald's) had lost value.

Boyle suggests that "it may be that people are beginning to wake up to the manipulation they are subject to by the big brands - the kind of branded forced feeding we get every time we turn on the TV, or wander into the street."
Source: Resurgence, number 212

Patients: some of the most vulnerable consumers

• The right to health

A whole-page ad in the New York times on February 2. 2003, which was reprinted one week later in Berlingske Tidende (Denmark), makes a strong case for changing our consumer patterns in the field of medicine. The advertisement was placed by Dr. Matthias Rath, M.D., whose basic premise is that health is a fundamental human right, and that medicinal firms are usurping that right. He states that the medicinal industry is serving its own purposes by getting natural medicines prohibited, and by launching a campaign against the spread of information on natural healthcare - and that it has the power to do so. Rath provides examples of how the medical industry’s and the US-government’s interests are tightly intertwined: he writes that Donald Rumsfeld served as a CEO and a board member for several multinational medicinal concerns (Searle and Gilead among others); the medicinal industry was one of the biggest contributors to the Bush-administration’s war agenda in the November 2002 elections; the first to benefit from the USA’s “Homeland Security Act” were medicinal firms, which were guaranteed immunity from lawsuits based on the serious side-effects of their products.
Rath concludes that the right to health and life is being compromised for billions of people by a handful of shareholders’ private interests. He urges consumers, medical practitioners, politicians and international organisations to join his campaign for “Health for All before 2020”, a goal which seems to be in sight, if only we are willing to spread the word and act on it.
Source: Berlingske Tidende, Sunday February 16, 2003
See also: www.dr-rath-health-foundation.org

Note: It has come to our attention that grants up to $1500 are available to individuals and organizations to advance alternative medicine and sustainable development. See www.chaimcenter.net for more information

• Creating appropriate healthcare: schools for good living

In an article for The Ecologist (October 2002), Dr. Peter Mansfield advocates that we should keep orthodox medicine in use for a range of physical disorders, but opt for natural alternatives in those areas where its usefulness is limited. Mansfield says “the term ‘National Health Service’ is a complete misnomer; the service isn’t concerned with ‘health’ at all, but with the bottomless financial pit that is disease management.” He adds that “what we have now is as appropriate to health as a garage is to good driving. We don’t need more hospitals and doctors, but ‘schools’ for good living.” Mansfield continues to compare detailed costs and benefit outlines for orthodox treatments versus alternative therapy for, respectively, tiredness and asthma. The financial and health picture he draws is clear: it is more economical - both in time and money - for patients to be treated alternatively for these ailments. Even though the current system only refunds patients for orthodox treatment, Mansfield advises them to “break out of the medical treadmill so they can manage their lives independently”. A first step toward independence can be joining Good Healthkeeping, or contacting the organisation - which Mansfield founded.
www.good-healthkeeping.co.uk
Source: The Ecologist, October 2002

Case Stories

• Nascent: Eco-cosmetics are on the upswing

“Ecological cosmetics are a particularly modern choice for the conscious consumers of today,” says a recent article in Danish newspaper Berlingske Tidende. A new Danish line of ecological cosmetics, called Nascent, is experiencing a record sales boost despite its short life span so far. Nascent’s products are based on the ecological principles set forward by the Japanese agronomist Fukuoka. One of the basic tenants is, that the skin has to be able to “read” the creams we put on it. Many of the synthetic ingredients in mainstream creams are foreign to our skins. “It is possible that some of these may be harmless, says Henrik Norholt, who developed Nascent. “But we don’t know, and what’s worse, we don’t know the long-term effects.” In a thought-provoking advertising campaign, Nascent asks its target audience: “What did your skin have for breakfast this morning?” The answer to this question can be rather unappetizing, judging by the labels of the ever-so-refined jars of day cream on our bathroom shelves – labels which more and more of us, in all age groups, actually do read, say people in the business. Some of Denmark’s leading natural skincare agents have noticed that consumers increasingly turn towards ecological cosmetics. This development has been spawned not only by fashion models endorsing ecological products, but also by magazines and other media picking up the subject of allergies and skin disease as a result of synthetic additives in creams. It helps when ecological skincare lines such as Nascent work hard at creating an aesthetic image. “By this we signal that ecological products don’t have to be boring to the eye or to the touch,” says Norholt.
Other cosmetics producers who are offering green skincare are Dr. Hauschka and Australian Jurlique. Jurlique’s turnover in Denmark has doubled over the past year. While the products originally were sold in just a few stores, they are now found all over the country. This is also true for Dr. Hauschka, whose products have been granted shelf space in Danish national department stores.
Source: Berlingske Tidende, February 12, 2003

• Young Dane denounces greed in consumption

The Danish Consumer Council recently held a writing contest for 15- to 20-year-old Danes, about “Youth and Consumption”. The entries received offer a wealth of information on today’s consumer behaviour, spanning an entire range of current attitudes to consumption - from the statement that purchasing just the right shirt can change the day’s colour from gloomy grey to yellow sunshine, to the awareness that the hunt for the perfect piece of clothing is just a way of covering up deeper problems.

The winner of the contest, Lea Pedersen (19), sent in an article which denounces young people’s dependency on consumption as a symptom of today’s reign of greed. She writes that, while the thought of consuming according to one’s needs fills her with a happy feeling, today’s wave of over-consumption leaves her with a sense of emptiness. “Nothing can or will stop us, before our hands are full and our credit cards glowing,” she says. “To buy and to throw out, only to go out and buy again, has become a completely integrated part of our daily life. We are constantly bombarded with special offers, which entice us to do one thing and buy the other. But in our modern and changeable society, it’s hard to keep up the pace, as that which is ‘hot’ today is ‘not’ tomorrow.” While she confesses that the present culmination of over-consumption concerns her, she describes “... yet another type of consumption, which frightens me even more. It is our consumption of each other and our sudden tendency to objectify one another ... That is why today, we shift partners like we shift cars. If the old model can no longer keep up with us, we exchange him or her with a newer one, who is faster and doesn’t need as much care or attention.” Between the lines, Lea reads another underlying truth: “with all of our consumption ... we seek to find something which can make us happy, something which will give our lives meaning ... (but) in the middle of all this consumption, we forget what and why we consume. It is as though someone has pushed a button inside us which says ‘consume’, only to tell us afterwards that the ‘stop’ button is out of order.”
Source: MetroXpress, February 20, 2003
See also www.taenk.dk/kronik

• Food Additives: There’s money in producing what consumers hate

An article in the Danish financial newspaper Børsen indicates that Consumers are dead set against additives in food, but that they get them anyway. The additive industry represents over DKK 26 Billion for the Danish market, and is one of the fastest growing sectors in the food business. Among the bestsellers are those additives which give food more flavour and aroma. According to a survey carried out by the Danish food industry, consumers clearly say No to food additives. Yet they are buying them for billions, in Denmark and abroad, where 90 percent of the total production is sold. “People are very sceptical about additives, but these can often mean a big improvement, which we as consumers don’t want to give up,” is the somewhat cryptic statement of Thorkil Kjær, Director of the Danish Allergy and Asthma Association. Rasmus Kjeldahl of the Danish Consumer Council says that additives are only necessary when mass production has taken all of the taste out of food products, and that they are the cause of growing allergies in both adults and children. Although only six additives have been banned by the EU so far, these are being shunned because of serious reasons such as suspected carcinogenic properties and affecting hereditary predispositions. An evaluation of 2700 chemically-defined additives has only started recently, because the food industry resisted testing. The cause of additives is being pleaded in rather a puzzling way by a self-contradictory statement from Mr. Kjeldahl, who professes that his association hasn’t yet found individuals who were allergic for “more than a few additives,” leading him to conclude that things “aren’t black and white”.
Source: Børsen, February 10, 2003

Features

• WTO rules hinder sustainable consumption

By Ross Jackson, Ph. D., chairman and founder of Gaia Trust (Denmark)

Many of those activists who are working in one way or another to promote a more sustainable world are unaware that the greatest hindrance to progress is the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The WTO was formed in 1994 to regulate international trade. All the major countries are members. On the surface most people would say, fine - we need rules so trade conflicts can be resolved peacefully. So what's the problem? The problem is that the WTO rules were written by corporations for corporations and approved with no input from environmentalists or social scientists and no public debate. What we have now is much more than a trade treaty - what we have is an institution of global governance to resolve major international conflicts with environmental and social consequences, but according to a corporate agenda, an institution that is unaccountable to any democratically elected forum.

For example, WTO rules will not allow the selling store to tell the consumer how any given product was produced or where it was produced, in order to protect corporate sellers. It may have been produced with terribly polluting production methods, or in a sweatshop in a Mexican maquiladora at $0.80 per hour under working conditions that are filthy, dangerous and inhuman by any Western standard. No matter. You will never know! Such "eco-labelling" information, vital to any consumer who wants to make a political choice, is considered "a barrier to free trade" by WTO rules.

This so-called "freedom" that the WTO alludes to is the freedom of sellers to sell their product into your market whether you want it or not. But your elected politicians do not have the freedom to say "No thanks. Not in our country" as they could prior to 1994. They have ceded that sovereign right to foreign corporations. The current WTO system guarantees that there is no incentive for any company to develop environmentally friendly production methods. Why should they, when it adds costs to their product, making it less competitive, and they cannot even tell their potential customers about it without getting the WTO on their necks? Of course, if the WTO rules insisted that the indirect environmental and social costs were included in product prices, as required by classical economics, then that would make a big difference. But they do not, and never will, because it would reduce their profits.

This is just one of many examples that illustrate why all persons interested in a sustainable future should insist that the WTO be scrapped and replaced by a new trade organization that takes its starting point in what is required in a sustainable and socially just world. The WTO is, in my opinion, beyond repair.

Note: Ross Jackson is working with Helena Nordberg-Hodge (author of Ancient Futures, and founder of ISEC _ the International Society for Ecology and Culture) on a book which argues these points, and will include a detailed proposal for an alternative trade organization.

• The happy consumer: a marketer’s Catch 22

By Karen Svensson

The world has enough for everyone’s need, but not for everyone’s greed
-Gandhi

The latest bid on consumer trends identifies ‘peace of mind’ as the need which rates highest among customer aspirations*. As a member of the ‘new’ consumer category which marketers are targeting, I feel that this evaluation is off the mark. By adopting ‘peace of mind’ as our overriding need, we are settling for less than we want, and less than we deserve. If we allow ourselves to dig deep down into our most fervent desires, I am quite sure that we will come up with something much more inspiring. In the depths of our beings, there is a need which often takes a backseat to all the must haves and to do’s, which we sometimes hardly dare to hope for, but which nevertheless overshadows all others: our natural propensity for happiness.

Patch Adams, the revolutionary American M.D. who applies Joy and Friendship as medicine, says: “If you tell psychiatrists that you are happy, they say you’re repressing your pain. I say, if you are in pain, you are repressing your happiness.” Happiness is an innate human drive. We are just so used to repressing it that we forget to ask for it, pursue it, and expect it.

I know three people who are consistently “plugged” in to the happiness source: My grandmother Antonia, Patch Adams, and the Dalai Lama. Apart from a great capacity for joy, these three people have one other thing in common: they have very few personal possessions. They have enough to cover their needs for food, shelter and basic clothing, but they are not attached. According to Patch Adams, “there is no hoarding in the Joy paradigm”. Much of the wisdom of this world is based on the same premise, from Gandhi’s teachings to Buddhism and Christianity.

We can see how marketers are faced with a catch 22: the hunger for accumulating goods contravenes happiness, yet happiness is our deepest need - essentially, if marketers truly wanted to help us meet our deepest need, they would have to advocate reduced consumption, and that in itself would be their demise...

*Bill Breen, Connect with Customers, www.fastcompany.com

Resources

• Consumer empowerment: websites for green buyers.

Calendar 2003 - ICIS Business Seminars (Bus) and Master Classes (MC)