Bottled Water

I watched a show on bottled water on the BBC last night about how business were able to create an industry and grow it to make billions of dollars a year (Foods That Make Billions http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00w8cll ).

According to the BBC, Margaret Thatcher is responsible for the rise of bottled water in the UK because she started making people pay for water instead of having it freely available. The consumers, then, had an interesting choice, pay for tap water or pay for bottled water. The marketing campaigns that came out for the bottled water persuaded many to choose bottled water.To me, this shows that structures are really in control of our choices. The BBC implied that without Thatcher's charge for water, the bottled water industry would not have had it so easy.

But there's more to the story that simple 'consumer choice' - when Coca-Cola launched Dasani in the UK, it was leaked that they were purifying tap water (as well as adding a few chemicals to give it a certain taste) and selling it. Dasani soon folded as no one was buying 'bottled tap water'. Interestingly, this is the same process that Nestle uses for it's 'Pure Life' water, but people still buy this bottled water. What's the difference? People's perceptions of the products are very different - the BBC nightly news outed Dasani as tap water (and other news media followed), but Nestle seems to have avoided media attention. The social pressure to boycott Dasani worked well to shut down the brand 5 weeks after it opened. I'm not sure if it came back, but it's a great example of the influence social pressure and social perceptions have on our lives.

'One' water was mentioned as an alternative to the big companies' water brands. One influenced the other brands to build wells in developing countries, which is helpful. I haven't had time to look into it, though, but does anyone know if they (One, Volvic, or other companies donating wells) provide maintenance for the wells or only use local materials and technologies that are easily maintained locally?

Alternative Currencies, or Pondering Funny Money

When trying to think up a complementary currency, I fond I was constrained by the current money system we have. The current system is so pervasive in my life that it is difficult to think of a different way of doing things. I realize that there are flaws in the current system, but it seems that it'll take someone much more clever than myself to think up a new system.

I suppose though, that a recession is a great time to launch alternative currencies - more people need money, so they would be more likely to consider something different. Do we know if many have been launched in the recent economic crunch?

What I've learned about complementary currencies is that its complicated. There doesn't seem to be a simple solution since the current monetary system is so ingrained into our societies. In this regards, though, it builds nicely off structure theory and Practice theory. How we use money is a practice. Approaches that focus on individuals' behavior will not be able to change the monetary system. The 'infrastructures of provision' seem to circulate around money, so change needs to happen at the macro-level; the structures in which we live need to be altered. How does one fathom such a change. I'm not sure that any of the complimentary currencies we designed in class during Monday's seminar moved past the individual-behavior-change level. This is not a criticism of me and my classmates, I only mention this to make the point that the current monetary system is truly ingrained.

Calling them 'complimentary currencies' seems to suggest that a grand change to the system is not possible - that these currencies will need to exist along side the current monetary system. A gradual take-over of the monetary system seems to be suggested by the term 'complimentary currency'. I suppose, though, that with so many economies interconnected a large-scale over-haul of the monetary system in one country would cause too much disruption to the global system.

It's interesting to think about having multiple types of currencies on a global scale - one for spending and one for storing. I would guess that global trade would be done in the storage currency, while intra-national trade would be in the spending currency. Would they be pegged to one another (like the US Dollar to the Hong Kong dollar, with 1 USD fixed between 7.5 and 8.5 HKD) or would they float free, like the exchange rate between the USD and the British Pound? If fixed, how would one compute value for each? If floating, this might encourage use of the spending currency, but would it end up with a confusing system in order to manage two currencies? Again, for me it's an interesting though exercise, and a valuable one for those who know what they're talking about, but I have no idea how these changes could actually be put into practice.

Green Spandex

from nus.org.uk

What is it about a grown man in green spandex jumping around that makes us want to conserve electricity? It would seem that this alone would be an argument for seeing the consumer as irrational. But then again, people seem to respond to humor. As we saw with the social marketing campaigns this morning, the groups that used humor garnered the most votes.

To me, this points out that people respond to many different influences. Our decisions are not only the result of a cost-benefit analysis. I also see influences that go beyond the social psychology approach. I agree that we are in a constant dialogue with societal norms, and identity is a great example of this, but there seems to be something more that is directing us and limiting our choices. This is my nod ahead to the structural approaches for next week. The structures in which we live make a huge difference on how we behave and on the attitudes we hold. We have been raised in social structures and therefore have had our understanding of the world limited since we were first born. If we consider the way we treat babies, this may become clear. Why is it so important to differentiate the sex of a baby from the day it's born? I realize that for identification in a hospital, it helps, but when the baby is taken home, why does it matter if someone calls it a he or a she? I feel that it matters because we have preconceived understandings of what it means to be a boy or a girl, and  these understandings come from the overarching social structure which we call 'gender'.

These three approaches nestle nicely within each other like matroshka dolls - the structure approach forming the outer layer in which the others sit, then the social-psychology approach which constantly bumps up against the outer layer, and the rational choice approach - which only comes out in specific situations after working through the social-psychology (how can we rationally choose the Wheetabix or Frosted Flakes if we haven't decided what's important to us?).

Maybe this is where we're going with the class, maybe I'm completely off. We'll see if my opinion changes after the next round of seminars and lectures.

Consumption as Identity

The idea that consumption is identity was presented in the lecture and is also found in one of the readings for this week: "(Un)sustainable Consumption" by Burgess et al. This idea makes sense to me and I see it all around. An important part of identity creation is symbol use, and consumption can be a way of displaying symbols. Our shoes, the way we style our hair, our car (but also our bicycle or bus pass) are symbols that all send messages. We consume as a way to identify ourselves.

It gets interesting when we leave what is called our 'home' culture (where we are most comfortable and, usually, the place we identify with) and enter a new culture. The symbols are different, and what we present about ourselves doesn't always translate - or it does translate, but means something completely different. Also, in a new culture, it is hard to read people - to get a feeling for who they are and what they are saying about themselves - since we don't understand the symbols they are using.

The trouble comes when we want consumption to slow down. How do we change the symbolic value of those consumables that are ‘inappropriate’, as Burgess et al. call it? Is it possible to change the social value of certain symbols? I suppose it is possible, but it would take quite a lot for the car to lose the symbolic value that it has.

Imagine if the following had no social value at all? What would the world be like if they had negative social value?

Individualization and The Lorax

I was drawn to Maniates’ “Individualization: Plant a Tree, Buy a Bike, Save the World?” on the recommended reading list because it started with a discussion of Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax. I disagree with much of Maniates’ treatment of the book, but I will cover that later. For now, I should say that I do appreciate that Maniates points out that there has been an ‘individualization of responsibility’, to use his phrase. He also points out that this is causing a narrowing of our alternatives, by constraining what we think of as viable alternatives. The idea that if we all plant a tree, we can save the world is one of his examples of this narrowed focus. Can we use this, though, as a stepping stone toward altering behaviour? If we get everyone to plant a tree (actually plant a tree, not pay to have it done) in a location that needs trees, can this be the first step in a lifetime of eco-consciousness that includes better consumption patterns? A question that I have, though, is what to do next? What do we need to do to make sure planting a tree is a first step and not the only step?

Maybe The Lorax is not as “dismal and depressing” (44) as Maniates believes, but is a useful tool to empower the young to re-think the actions of the previous generation, and not make the same mistakes. I feel the young children of today need that message just as much as we need it.

I feel Maniates is coming at the book from the wrong direction – he wants to read it as a book aimed at adults, when it is clearly a book aimed at younger readers. Of course, adults can enjoy it, but we cannot lose sight of the fact that it was written to engage young readers. The ending is full of encouragement for young readers – a kind of encouragement that will hopefully make them excited to take the reins of environmental responsibility and work towards solving problems; encouragement that will help them make the next step, so planting a tree becomes the first step, not the only step.

But then again, maybe I’m sentimental about The Lorax.