Supported by Tesco, Forum for the Future is running a series of 'Ahead of the Agenda' seminars during 2008 and 2009 to examine the emerging trends in sustainability that are likely to be crucial to business and the retail sector in the coming years.

The first seminar, summarised here, looked at sustainability in the suburbs. The second seminar, entitled ‘Consumer Power: can we shop our way to sustainability?’ explored the issue of sustainable consumption. We asked:

• What are the barriers and opportunities to empowering consumers to make greener choices?
• What are the practical steps that business can take to create value whilst reducing the impact on our planet?
• What could the retail sector look like in five years’ time?

The seminar was held on 7th July 2008, at the Innovation Centre in Holborn. The panel consisted of:

Roger Levett - leading sustainable development consultant

Lucy Siegle - journalist, author and broadcaster on the environment and ethical lifestyles

Lucy Neville-Rolfe, CMG - Executive Director (Corporate and Legal Affairs) Tesco Plc and Deputy Chair of the British Retail Consortium

Lord Adair Turner - former Director-General of the CBI and the Chair of the Government's new Committee on Climate Change.

James Goodman, Head of Futures at Forum for the Future, chaired the seminar.

Opening comments
Roger Levett did not beat about the bush. Addressing the evening’s question of ‘Can we shop our way to sustainability?’, his answer was a succinct ‘no’.

He explained this in terms of the barriers that exist in the consumer world to sustainable shopping:

1. Cost – A Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall chicken costs more than a battery one
2. Sex – Green products aren’t often sexy. It’s only ostensible purchases/actions which cut it on this front, ones where you can visibly demonstrate your ‘lifestyle’ choice to others
3. Habit – People don’t generally give that much thought to their purchases. In the same way that it’s far easier for a chef to become a microwave slob than the other way round, it’s far easier to slip into bad buying habits than to adopt new good ones
4. Time – Consumers often don’t have the time to research the best choices. Even when they do, the most sustainable option may not be clear

Roger argued that it’s therefore unfair to dump sustainability decisions onto the customer. Indeed, many consumers (66% of them according to Forum for the Future’s recent research) would simply rather that the most environmentally-damaging products were taken off the shelves.

In any case he pointed out, the notion of choice can be somewhat misleading. Other influences mean that we often don’t have a real choice. All our decisions are made within wider frameworks which may sometimes constrain us – be that peer pressure, the transport system, or choices made for us by supermarket buyers.

He concluded by referring to the issue that he believes underlies all the arguments around sustainable consumption: that we need to consume less: to buy less, to travel less. Put this simply it sounds unappealing he said, but it can be a positive thing. Companies need to change the nature of the business that they do to meet peoples’ same needs but in different ways. We need to take the ‘stuff’ out of what we do.

Lucy Siegle explored where her enthusiasm for the concept of ethical consumerism came from, and why she may now be falling out of love with it.

Lucy explained that she had always enjoyed shopping and fashion and was keen to explore a different way of addressing that particular need/desire. She was disenchanted with the lack of legislative appetite and enthused by the ability of ‘ethical consumerism’ to get a large number of people on board with sustainability in an interesting and appealing way.

Lucy reflected on how far ethical consumerism has come since its origins. Given that the first fair-traders were laughed at and told that their products were ‘for vicars’, it seems that either vicars have become avaricious consumers or the concept has actually taken off.

She then discussed the need to create a point of difference in our society from the traditional consumerist one: where multi-nationals wield the power, we buy things as fast as we throw them away, and an ‘out of sight out of mind’ mentality prevails. We urgently need to make visible the ‘rucksack’ of impacts that every product carries and start to take responsibility for this.

Lucy demonstrated with an example from fashion. When conducting a series of vox-pops recently asking people what fabric they were wearing the vast majority didn’t know. Lucy pointed out that knowing the make-up of your garment can not only help you decide whether to buy it in the first place, but also to care for it properly and hence give it a longer life-span. This is just one demonstration, she argued, of the way that we as consumers are often ‘buying blind’. The huge influence exerted by brands and celebrities is another, with the choices that are promoted often eminently unsustainable.

But it’s not all doom and gloom. Consumer power is notoriously efficacious, and we should not forget that. Traditionally we seem to have employed a negative screening policy in the UK, a kind of boycotting checklist, but even this has been impactful enough to cost companies billions of pounds.

The appetite is there; it’s just not always being met. There is often a substantial gap between what consumers want (when they are trying to shop ethically) and what they actually get. Lucy gave an example of someone wanting to buy a fashionable, but totally sustainable summer dress – and ending up with one made from organic cotton but otherwise of uncertain provenance, made by the same garment sewers and using an uncertified dyeing house – all with the sort of price tag that makes it ‘disposable’.

Lucy asserted that if we’re relying on consumer power to take us forward, we need to know more about it. Consumer buying patterns are very difficult to predict, and at the moment we’re largely in unchartered territory. Much more research is needed in this area if we’re to harness its huge potential.

Lucy Neville-Rolfe began by outlining how individual choices affect around 60% of our carbon emissions in the UK – 35% directly (for example the way we heat our homes) and 25% indirectly (via the products we buy).

In tackling the vast problem of carbon emissions and climate change, we need to harness the power of consumers – it is huge, and it’s essential. Lucy emphasised that business and government must both act to take advantage of this potential force for good. She also acknowledged the argument that consumer choice is not currently moving quickly enough to effect the change we need.

Lucy outlined a few of the many examples of great sustainability initiatives in business that we’ve already seen – from companies such as Sky, Adnams and Cadburys. But if we are to meet the carbon reductions targets for 2050 we need much more, and importantly, on an international scale.

Tesco see their role in this challenge in four ways:

1. Operational improvements - for example in their outlets such as Shrewsbury, a special environmental store
2. Research – such as through the independent Sustainable Consumption Institute looking at what makes people change their purchasing decisions and how to make retail and the supply chain more sustainable
3. Encouraging market mechanisms and innovation
4. Mobilising consumer behaviour - enabling a “revolution in green consumption”.

Tesco’s research to date has been encouraging, demonstrating that the overwhelming majority of consumers are concerned and want to act: indeed 85% say they have already made changes to their lifestyles. Tesco has also conducted research into the main barriers to action, which have emerged as:

1. Price – being ‘green’ is too expensive
2. Information – people are not sure how to make a difference
3. Isolation – the feeling that they can’t make a difference alone

The key thing is empowering people to overcome these barriers, and unlocking their desire for sustainable products. Lucy argued that this is eminently doable, and even though some have argued that the current economic climate may discourage ethical consumption amongst consumers, people don’t fundamentally change their personalities: they may trade down slightly but will still search for the sustainable option.

Lucy concluded by re-emphasising the importance and scale of the challenge – nothing short of a ‘green revolution’ is needed. We need to work hard, and fast, to engage the consumer on the issues that matter. If we don’t get this right, it’s our children and their children that will be living in a world we wouldn’t wish on them.

Adair Turner framed his talk by asking about the balance between individual and society-wide action. How much can an individual do? Can we even do it collectively? Or do we need companies/government to intervene?

Lord Turner explored this balance, focussing on his area of expertise: climate change. He looked at three different ways to reduce carbon emissions:

1. Changing lifestyle or behaviour i.e. doing something different, such as cycling instead of driving
2. Changing energy efficiency i.e. the behaviour does not change. The lifestyle is the same but it is more efficient
3. Utilising energy from different sources

It is possible for people themselves to do the first of these. However, their ability is conditioned by policies that by their nature have to be collective. For example choosing to cycle is an individual choice, but may be constrained by the current inadequacy of many cycle lanes (which he pointed out in London have a tendency to disappear without warning or indeed contain buses!).

The potential of individual choice to send a signal to companies is substantial, but can only go so far in its influence. For instance whilst it’s possible to buy a more energy efficient car it’s not always possible to ensure that it’s sustainably built. The conclusion has to be that a number of players have to act simultaneously if we are to bring about significant change.

Similarly, it can also be very difficult to have a significant individual impact simply through energy efficiency. Lord Turner argued that to really ring the changes here, nothing short of high-level mechanisms such as cap and trade will do the trick.

Lord Turner referred in his speech to travel where perhaps carbon is less ‘well-utilised’ than it might be – for example a stag weekend in Prague (where, he suggested – with tongue firmly in cheek - participants’ intoxication may mean that they are not even aware of which city they’re in and so might as well have stayed at home).

DiscussionThis prompted a question from the audience about the potential for elitism in policies constraining consumption – can we really discriminate against travel (and other forms of consumption) which are not seen to be ‘worthy’? When it comes to choice editing, who chooses? Lord Turner responded that it is of course impossible to distinguish in public policy between, for example, a high and low value use of a flight, and we should not try to do so. However, we need to work towards people being able to assess this within their own consumption. Ask yourself the question – what really matters to you? And then get rid of the things that don’t. Much consumption is arguably out of habit rather than necessity. Roger Levett reinforced this point by asserting that we need price signals to change – we can’t really expect people to choose a train to Paris if it is more expensive than a flight.

Lucy Neville-Rolfe spoke of her interest in the personal psychology of change. She cited research that suggests one key mechanism is to catch people at particularly significant change-points in their lives – for example when going to university, getting married or having children.

Lucy Siegle spoke in response to a question about how consumers should deal with conflicting ethical/environmental/social concerns when making purchasing decisions. She emphasised the fact that people in the developing world who can afford to will take better care of the environment – and the issues that we take to be separate therefore, often in reality go hand in hand. There is a huge interconnectedness between sustainability issues which business sometimes succeeds in disconnecting. Terms such as ‘eco’ and ‘green’ are in this way sometimes misleading – both business and consumers need to think holistically about product impacts.

Roger Levett’s speech had a strong emphasis on the role of government, regulation and choice editing. But, questioned one audience member, is choice editing (on the scale we need it) actually possible or indeed politically desirable? Roger explained that choice editing happens by default, all the time. It simply needs to occur on different issues, and more consistently. He argued that Ken Livingstone’s time in office proved that it is possible to choice edit in a positive way around transport – and that Boris Johnson is indeed continuing a lot of these measures.

A further question from the floor brought up the role of the private sector in creating change. Both Lord Turner and Lucy Neville Rolfe emphasised the potential of the private sector in this respect, and the onus upon it to act. Lord Turner argued that the private sector should not misuse its lobbying power – there’s a danger of being the ‘drag anchor’ on any change in legislation. Similarly politicians must also be wary of this when chasing votes. If any sustainability-based price lever is always going to be leapt on as a ‘stealth tax’ then this will be counterproductive. He asserted that the public increasingly want to see a cross-party coalition on climate change measures, not for it to be used as a voting tool.

Summing up, the panellists were asked for their final thoughts or to suggest an idea for their ideal sustainable product. Lord Turner emphasised the need to focus on developing forms of consumption which use the positive, renewable resources we have in abundance: skills and people. Lucy Neville Rolfe mentioned two aspirational products: highly efficient solar panels that could be used in Africa and the invention of the ‘iPod car’: small, efficient and hugely desirable.

Lucy Siegle described her ideal product as ‘shoe sari’. With the sari being perhaps the perfect ethical fashion item – prized, adaptable and carefully sourced, a shoe with the same attributes (detachable heels, user-specific, permanently on-trend) would be highly desirable – and save the chore of shopping! Roger Levett felt that the product that could make the biggest contribution to sustainable development would be a coveted bicycle. Ornate, even jewel-encrusted, anything to increase the perceived value of bikes and de-couple their association with a lack of social standing, specifically in India and China. The product’s perfect, he argued, it’s just the perception that needs some work. Perhaps this is the case in a lot more instances than we realise.

‘Ahead of the agenda’ seminar series

For further information about this seminar, or others in the series, please contact

Richard Hardyment
r.hardyment@forumforthefuture.org.uk
02073243673

or

Jemima Jewell
j.jewell@forumforthefuture.org.uk
02073243652

The date of the next seminar is 23rd October

Sustainable Consumption Institute (SCI)

Further details about the Sustainable Consumption Institute, together with the key research themes, can be found at:
http://www.sci.manchester.ac.uk/
For more information please contact:

Richard Seeley, Head of Institute Administration, Sustainable Consumption Institute
Richard.Seeley@manchester.ac.uk
0161-275-2091

or

Chloe Meacher, Climate Change Manager, Tesco
chloe.meacher@uk.tesco.com
01992 806 816