On "Green" Consumerism Environmental Privatization and "Family Values" La consommation verte fait partie d'une able among the misrepresentations on the tendance vers la privatisation de Green market. But what is being sold in green l'environnement en ce que les politiques consumerism is not a product but a feel- environnementales sont de plus en plus consumerism ing. My favourite example is baking soda: rkduites aux activitks de l'individu et de la masks its where once it was marketedas a deodorizer sphLre domestique. Non seulement cette for your refrigerator, kitchen drains or cat tendance est-elle problkmatique pour market-driven litter box, it is now being sold as "an les kcologistes - les problbmes origins under a thick alternative to harsh chemical products." environnementaux requi&rent &S solu- layer of morality Better yet, the package says that, by buy- tions plus complexes+nais elle est ing this product, you are a person who destructrice pour les fkministes car elle packaging. "cares about the environment." This is encourage &S valeurs trbs conservatrices lifestyle advertising at its finest: where sur la famille et les rdles sexuels. consumers once waged war on dirt, we forests, or that have been chlorine bleached can now buy peace with Mother Nature. If you've been to a supermarket recently, at the expense of entire ecosystems; peo- When we buy "natural" or "chemical free" then you'll have noticed a distinct trend ple are increasingly more willing to pur- or "organic" products, we can now, it is toward the "greening" of consumer prod- chase organic, or energy-conserving, or implied, feel secure that we've done our ucts. Where once we may have been en- recycled goods, to change what they buy part toward environmental cleanup. ticed to purchase ornately-packaged toi- in order to demonstrate and foster envi- Green consumerism is, actually, an let bowl cleaners that foamed bright pink ronmental responsibility. And certainly, oxymoron. If the adjective "green" has and left a lingering aroma supposedly the consumer has some power to change any meaning at all, it includes reference to reminiscent of roses, we now find rather what gets produced: market research has the systemic problems of over-produc- austere, recyclable bottles of "cruelty suggested that consumers are, in some tion and over-consumption; the point of a free," "all-purpose," vinegar-based house- cases, willing to pay more for "ecologi- "green" politics should be to show how hold cleaners. Where once paper towels cally safe" products, which means that consumerism is, itself, part of the prob- came in a variety of different colour corporations are considerably more likely lem. The implications of this stance are schemes to match any kitchen decor, there to produce them.l potentially wide-ranging; at the very least, is now a distinct emphasis on brown But, as a whole, green consumerism however, "green" means consuming less (whether or not that brown actually means masks more problems than it solves. Be- for the affluent, not just consuming differ- unbleached). And where once packaging yond the problem of regulation (meaning ently.2 Ironically, perhaps, the creation of highlighted words like "easy" or "extra- that the labels "green" or "natural" or these new green commodities may even strength" or "deodorant" or "instant ac- "organic" should actually refer in some exacerbate the problem; they represent an tion," there is now at least equal priority precise way to the contents of the pack- expanding market in a recession-tom given to words like "natural" or "biode- age: at present, they do not), "green" economy, a space for the development of gradable" or, best of all, "environmen- consumerism is part of a process of envi- new products to keep overproduction and tally friendly." ronmental privatization. This process is overconsumption alive. The phenomenon of green consumer- problematicfor both environmentalistand Green consumerism masks its market- ism certainly reflects some sort of aware- feminist politics: environmental privati- driven origins under a thick layer of mo- ness of environmental issues: people are zation depoliticizes environmental prob- rality-packaging: "if you buy this prod- increasingly less willing to purchase goods lems, and does so in the company of a very uct, you can help to save the world." that have been developed at the expense conservative notion of gender. Through this packaging, "green" prod- of small animals' lives, that have been There are, doubtless, many truly or- ucts attempt to elevate the act of buying wrapped at the expense of old-growth ganic or biodegradable products avail- into some sort of moral or political act, VOLUME 13, NUMBER 3 45 even though buying is actually part of the shifts the burden of responsibility onto a moment. Look at the language: "kinder problem, and even though the act of con- individuals and households, and away to nature," "environmentally friendly," suming could hardly be said to be an act of from states, corporations, and global po- even "safe." These are images aimed at salvation (although, "salvation through litical arrangements. The privatization of women, at motherhood, at the "family." consumption" is certainly part of the pack- environmental change undermines both Green consumerism in particular, and age we are being sold). But the represen- collective and individual resistance; it environmental privatization in general, tation is very powerful in the context of a turns politics into actions such as squash- have a particular impact on women: it is projected environmental crisis: the sup- ing tin cans, morality into not buying women's "traditional" terrain that gets overpackaged elevated as the apex of environmental muffins, and envi- behaviour. On the surface, this may seem ronmentalism into a positive step: a revalorization of wom- •- If environmentalism is seen as taking your own en's work, of "maternal" behaviour. But cloth bag to the there is also a downside: if environmen- • household behaviour, then it is grocery store. talism is increasingly seen as household : women's lives that come under None of these ac- behaviour, then it is women's lives that : the most intense scrutiny as the tions challenges come under the most intense scrutiny as • capitalist eco- the new private ecological morality comes new private ecological morality nomic growth: into focus. And it is also a very particular . - c3 . comes into focus. none of these ac- conception of "women" and "the family" tions makes pub- that gets invoked. lic or collective or Let me give you an example. In a recent co-operative the advertisement "selling" nuclear power (of position is that people feel the need to do process of ecological restoration; none of all things), a kindly grandfather (mother- something, and that green consumerism these actions provokes a serious examina- substitute) explains to his concerned offers them an avenue of contribution. tion of the social relations and structures granddaughter (well-informed for a four- Green products sell a lifestyle that is that have brought about our current crisis. year-old) how nuclear power does not described by such words as "responsibil- Rather, the idea that these actions are part cause acid rain or global warming @re- ity," and that includes such activities as of "saving the earth" would seem to turn sumably, granddaughter can't yet pro- reducing, reusing, andrecycling.Although attention away from subversive, collec- nounce "uranium tailings"), how the frag- these latter actions might at least make tive, or public solutions. ile tree they have planted together in an people think about the legacy of In short, environmental politics are not, orgy of familial bonding requires this overconsumption (landfills, leaching, air and cannot be, simply a question of life- "clean" energy in order to survive. Subti- and water pollution, etc.), they are indi- style. Yet they are fast becoming en- tle: nuclear power for nuclear families. vidual changes, personal decisions, ac- trenched in the private sphere; indeed, It is no accident that "family values" are tivities that tend to be incorporated fairly they are taking the shape of a progres- invoked to sell continuedcapitalist growth unproblematically into daily household sively more intrusive moral code at the in an environmental context that cannot routines without other significantchanges, expense of sustained political critique. I stand such growth, and in a social context and without planting the seeds of broader could give you numerous examples: the in which the nuclear family is subject to social or environmental transformation. person who took up half an hour at the intense critique by feminists. Both "the In this process by which "the environ- meeting of a radical environmental or- environment" and "the family" are hot ment" becomes a question of lifestyle, it ganization to berate a participant for not political items: they are contested ter- becomes depoliticized; it becomes a pri- using recycled paper; the all-candidates' rains, subject to ideological appropriation vate matter, something that people feel "environment" meeting for the 1992 To- by both the left and the right. And where they are helping in their daily lives, even ronto mayoral race, at which the most it is possible to see what an emancipatory though their daily lives have changed heavily weighted question surrounded the project that deals with both issues might little, and even though social and eco- candidates' personal use of water-saving look like (as