HOW THE STUFF YOU BUY CAUSES CLIMATE CHANGE
I don’t consider myself a particularly voracious shopper. Yet somehow, when G and I moved out of our 1000 square foot condo a little over a year ago, we managed to fill over 30 boxes with stuff, much of which we hadn’t used in the entire decade we lived there.
I know I’m not alone in my tendency to amass stuff. Apparently, there are 300,000 items in the average American home. One out of every 10 Americans rents offsite storage. The US has upward of 50,000 storage facilities, more than 5 times the number of Starbucks. The average American throws away 65 pounds of clothing per year. The horrifying stats go on.
The effect on our bodies and minds of our desire to accumulate has been the subject of much study and debate, and may depend on differences among people’s physiology, upbringing, and culture. The effect it has on the environment, however, is beyond debate. Consumerism is killing the planet.
The environmental effects of consumerism are manifold. We pillage the Earth to obtain the materials and land to produce stuff. We pollute the Earth when we produce and transport it. We fill landfills when we dispose of it. Each of these effects is devastating to our planet.
Perhaps the most underappreciated of these devastating effects, however, are the greenhouse gas emissions that are generated by our stuff. These emissions are a huge part of the climate change problem that will render a significant (and growing) portion of our planet uninhabitable in my daughter’s lifetime.
You might not realize it, but almost everything you buy contributes to greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change. In fact, the stuff we buy amounts to a whopping 26% of the average American’s carbon footprint.
How does the stuff we buy contribute to climate change? The stuff we buy needs to be produced or manufactured, packaged, and transported to us. To do all that, energy is required, which is usually generated by burning fossil fuels. And burning fossil fuels generates greenhouse gases. National Geographic offers a helpful example:
“A t-shirt, for example, might get made of cotton grown in India; be manufactured in China using coal energy to power the sewing machines; packed up in yet another country with oil-based plastic packaging; shipped across oceans in fossil-fuel-fired container ships; and delivered by diesel truck to the store in which they’re sold.”
Each step in this chain generates climate-changing greenhouse gases.
You might wonder whether there’s anything you can even do about these emissions, since most of them have already occurred by the time you make your purchase.
There is! Companies only produce stuff that people will buy. Individual consumer preferences and actions add up. If we buy less, companies will produce less, thereby reducing future emissions.
“But we need to buy stuff.” To be clear, I’m not advocating that we completely cease buying things. Of course we need to buy some stuff. But I’m sure you’ll agree that for most of us, we don’t need all the stuff we buy. Americans spend $1.2 trillion annually on nonessential goods (i.e., items we do not need). We can buy less stuff without affecting the quality of our lives and our economy. And we can buy the right stuff—stuff that isn’t so awful for our planet.
So, to reduce the climate-changing greenhouse gases emitted by the stuff you buy, (1) buy less stuff, and (2) buy better stuff (i.e., stuff that doesn’t cause as many greenhouse gas emissions).
1. Buy less stuff. “Buy less stuff” sounds like a pretty easy prescription, and in some ways, it is. For example,
Take care of and repair the stuff you already have. When we care for the things we already have, we don’t need to buy new things as often.
Share items with your neighbors or friends. This is particularly helpful for items you’ll use only sporadically, or for a short period of time. For example, I borrow gardening tools from one neighbor, and I share outdoor kids’ toys with another.
Another amazing resource is your local Buy Nothing group, where you can find hand-me-downs gifted by people in your community. I love this idea because it saves both emissions and money by avoiding purchases, and it also prevents usable items from going to the landfill. And if you’re so inclined, you can return the favor by gifting items you no longer need. You can find your local Buy Nothing group by searching “Buy Nothing [insert name of your community]” on Facebook.
But to meaningfully “buy less stuff,” we have harder work to do. Our purchasing habits won’t substantially change until we rethink the consumer mindset. For physiological and cultural reasons, this is easier said than done. But here are good reasons to really work on this, completely apart from the environment: studies show that when we buy less stuff, we’re happier. And we need no study showing that buying less stuff saves money.
2. Buy better stuff. When you need to make a purchase, try to do so in a way that will minimize emissions and therefore be better for the planet.
Buy more second-hand or reclaimed stuff. The more we can use items already in circulation, the better for our planet. It saves resources, avoids emissions caused by the manufacture and transport of new items, and prevents a whole lot of waste, including by keeping usable items out of the landfill.
Buying second-hand items can also save you a lot of money. According to market experts, you can typically find second-hand merchandise at 70% off the full retail price.
Buy quality items. Higher quality items are more likely to last longer, and therefore will take longer to require an emissions-generating replacement.
Buy from local mom and pops rather than online-only shops. Studies have found that deliveries by local shops resulted in less than half as many emissions per item as deliveries by online-only retailers. In-person shopping at local stores also generates fewer emissions than online shopping, but delivery by local brick-and-mortar establishments had the lowest carbon footprint. A convenient outcome in the midst of a pandemic!
If you must buy from online retailers, bundle purchases into fewer packages, and forgo same-day delivery, if possible.
Buy goods with third-party environmental certifications—sometimes, maybe. Wouldn’t it be great if every item we purchased had a label disclosing the carbon footprint of the item? This actually exists for a growing number of food and beverage brands! Unfortunately, there just aren’t enough participants in this labeling scheme (yet) for this to be a reliable method by which to evaluate the environmental impact of our purchases.
Until it becomes more widespread, however, we’re stuck with the labeling scheme we have—which is a mess of third-party environmental certifications, some of which are useful (e.g., B Corp certification), and some of which don’t mean much. Stay tuned for a future post explaining which of these certifications are best, but for now, take a minute to google any third-party certifications before relying on them.
We must start considering the environmental price tag of our purchases. The truth is, everything we buy takes a toll on the planet. By being circumspect and conscious consumers, we can reduce a major source of greenhouse gas emissions and help slow climate change.