I read an interesting article by Devin Leonard a few days ago. This article was published in one of the local free paper, mypaper. Its title is “Go green? Just buy less stuff”. I have included some quotes that were of interest:

“one of the biggest business stories was how large corporations were going to save the planet and make billions of dollars for their shareholders at the same time.”

“consumers who load up their shopping carts with organic food, for instance, may be unwittingly subsidising big farm companies that are eradicating forests and defiling the soil in some developing countries.”

“fashionably green rock bands like Coldplay, whose members fly around the world and think they can erase their sizeable carbon footprints by planting trees in developing countries. In Coldplay’s case, many of the trees died.”

The author advocated “instead of buying green, we simply need to buy less stuff.” There is truth in this statement. Think about our electronic usage, how many times we have purchased new ones when the old one is still working? The vendors are leading us to constantly upgrade to something “better” or “faster”. Did anyone ever ask the question “do i need another one?”. Buy reducing unnecessary consumption, it leads to a reduction in demand and therefore reduces wastage.

Original article here: my05-022-0-mya

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