Consumption; And Design’s Role as a Behavioral Change Agent
I recently watched this video – The Story of Stuff (YouTube link) – and while it did not say anything that I did not know already, it did jolt my memory and remind me that while I might know things, I have proceeded to forget them as well. In grad school, I became very interested in sustainability and the environment and proceeded to take a class as well as read books like Natural Capitalism and In The Bubble. My slant has always been about Design and something else (education, developing world, sustainability). But recently, I have been more focused on a side-project of mine and doing less thinking. And am glad this video gave me the jolt that I needed.
The video is really well done, simple and elegant and graspable. I want to talk about a couple of things she brings up. The first is how the era of consumption was brought on as a behavioral change (not her words exactly, but not really mine either), how the economy needed a boost after WWII and people buying a ton of stuff would really help. And it certainly did. It carried the United States this far, and of course, a lot of the other countries fell behind and everyone was happy. But where it leaves us now is obvious – global warming, rapid decline of natural habitats, over-fishing, loss of forests at an insane rate, animals running out of space to live (The movie “Over the Hedge” made me incredibly sad because that was the biggest thing that struck me about it) etc. And all of this, IMHO, has been brought about because it was designed this way, to bring about a change in the behaviour of people. Perceived and Planned Obsolescence are the terms she uses and it certainly is bang on target. We are told by ads on TV to go buy new things and are in a rapid consumption cycle.
One of the reasons we so readily go out and buy something is due to the lack of transparency of the consumption process. We do not know the REAL cost of a good. For example, the journey of a coke can(will update this once I get my hands on the book). Or the weight in materials of a laptop (approx 4000x the amount of weight in materials is utilized). If we did know the real cost, if the entire process was transparent, I am sure that a lot less consumption will happen.
And now it is time for design to bring about another change in behaviour. We need to shift from this mindset of consumption to living with a lighter footprint. We need another behavioral change, a shift in mindset. And a bit more deeply, people need to question, “What is happiness?”. We need to look beyond our lifetime. A bunch of stuff. And it has to happen. And it will happen.
tl;dr: Watch the video. Buy the book.
