Tipping the environmental balance

By Maria Elena Hurtado

Nobody really knows when the world's consumption of natural resources will reach a point of no return. The same goes for pollution. What we do know is that the danger signals are flashing.

The discovery of the hole punched by CFCs in the ozone layer was an early warning of humanity's impact on the environment. In 1990, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimated that carbon dioxide emissions -- the main cause of global warming -- must be cut by over 60 percent just to stabilize concentrations in the atmosphere at today's levels. the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations warns that global fish catches are, on average, 20 percent higher than can be sustained in the long term.

Such facts demand urgent action before the Earth runs out of breath. The buzzwords are sustainable production and consumption. The search for practical measures that will coax companies, governments and people to produce and consume in environmentally friendly ways has accelerated over the past two years.

Attention is turning towards the demand rather than the supply side of the equation. The logic is simple. To stay in business, companies must respond to market signals. If consumers start looking for products that use fewer resources, are recyclable or have a longer life, companies will have to produce them.

"If we do not want to give up the market economy, we must use the behavior of consumers to tip the balance towards a more sustainable development model," maintains Albert Vilalta, environment councilor of the Generalitat de Catalunya in Spain.

Traditionally, consumer organizations have advised people on the best buy, based on price, quality and safety. Some 12 of the 215 members of Consumers International, the global federation of consumer organizations, evaluate products and services in their own test laboratories. The most successful organizations survive by selling magazines: Consumer Reports of the U.S. leads the pack with around 5 million readers.

Alerting people to the environmental impact of their consumption habits is one of the aims of these organizations. But they sometimes encounter problems from traditional readers when they venture into ethical or green consumerism.

"Most of our organizations were founded to advise consumers to buy this or that product," says Jan Luuk de Ridder of the Netherlands organization Consumentenbond. "Should we now stop testing and comparing products that we know are not environmentally sound?

"Should we test tumble dryers, when we know that it is better for the environment to put the clothes out to dry on the line? Their sale is increasing year by year; our members want information about them. So yes, we do test tumble dryers, but we also tell the other, environmental, side of the story. In the end, we think it is up to the individual consumer to make his or her own choice," says de Ridder.

"Consumers still want to consume. They just want to do so without sacrificing the Earth and future generations," states a policy document published by Consumers International. "To add 'value for money' we need to add 'value for people' and 'value for the environment'."

Consumentenbond is one of the organizations that has gone farthest down the green route, reflecting the high environmental awareness in the Netherlands. One out of eight families there belongs to the organization. Its magazine, Consumentengids, occasionally profiles only the cleanest products. In 1994, for example, it tested CFC and HFC-free refrigerators. On another occasion, it exclusively compared water-based paints.

When environmental factors are included in the final comparative ratings, the results speak for themselves. "For instance, if we include tests for PBBs and PBDOs -- the most ecologically damaging flame retardants -- in television sets, the result can never be better than 'not satisfactory' even if the technical quality of the set is superb," says de Ridder. Consumentenbond can give environmental performance factors up to 50 percent of the weight in its product rating.

Reaching a definitive view, however, is far from easy. The scientific evidence may be contested and the impact may vary in different circumstances. When both Consumentenbond and the Consumers' Union compared washable and disposable diapers, the first came out in favor of washable diapers, while the second found the choice depended on such issues as the amount of water and landfill space available.

Other problems include the fact that some green products do not perform well; the issue of how to weigh environmental factors; and the high cost of developing new testing methods. Sometimes, ratings cover one or two specific factors -- such as CFCs or energy efficiency -- but ignore a product's lifetime impact from design-to-disposal.

A few of the largest organizations, including Consumentenbond and Germany's Stiftung Warentest, are starting to do life-cycle analyses when comparing products. But these have to rely almost entirely on information from manufacturers, who can hardly be expected to reveal data which would result in an unfavorable rating for the products. Until a way is found to get accurate and truthful information from manufacturers, comprehensive comparative testing will be confined to products for which the environmental impact data is not just available but can be independently verified.

Quality of life

Besides reporting on product tests, consumer magazines are also beginning to carry environmental stories. Choice, the magazine of the Australian Consumers' Association, discusses lead in petrol alongside car tests and phosphates alongside detergent trials.

Many organizations offer practical information on how to be a green consumer in their magazines and in books or pamphlets. Choice's bimonthly pages on the environment have covered such themes as The Green Home and How Clean is Our Air? Last year, it rated six real homes and families on energy use, transport preference, waste treatment, recycling and other environmental criteria, offering readers the opportunity to rate their own lifestyles.

Consumer Reports and Consumentengids have carried environmental quizzes, while every issue of the Consumer Association of Penang's widely-read magazine includes environmental stories and an Environmental Tips column.

Consumer organizations also lobby and campaign, and this is also expanding to include environmental concerns. Consumers International is working on a set of guidelines on sustainable consumption as recommended by the Commission on Sustainable Development in 1995. They will be included in the influential United Nations Guidelines for Consumer Protection.

The greatest challenge facing consumer organizations is how to address overconsumption by rich nations and rich people everywhere -- one of the main reasons for the environmental crisis.

"It is essential to re-educate people to accept new consumption patterns and to give up their addiction to overconsumption," says Marilena Lazzarini, who heads the Instituto Brasileiro de Defensa do Consumidor. "A new definition of quality of life must be found that does not revolve around the idea of working more in order to consume more."

Maria Elena Hurtado is the global policy and campaigns director of Consumers International. The article originally appeared in Our Planet The United Nations Environment Program Magazine for Sustainable Development.