Do you have to be middle class to be green?

Anne Clarke

In discussing green consumerism, people commonly assert that being green is too expensive to be a reality for a lot of people. However, being green only needs to be middle class if you take a narrow view of the way in which you can take responsibility for the un-environmental and unethical effects our lifestyles have. Whilst it is true that buying green or ethical options can be more expensive than other options (especially ‘value’ or ‘economy’ lines), the really radical way to be ‘green’ today is to live more simply: to simply consume less. This green lifestyle option is certainly within range of a lot more people.

In the lead up to Christmas and the crazy consumerism that accompanies this, I have been unable to stop asking myself how much of this spending is actually needed. We all know that we are living at an unsustainable level but we still seem unable to break our consumer habits of buying unnecessarily. For example it would be almost socially impossible for most people to choose not to buy Christmas presents on the basis of them being unneeded and therefore bad for the environment; an unnecessary use of increasingly scarce resources. Without wanting to sound like a Scrooge, if green choices such as this became more acceptable, it would be as easy to make a difference by not buying something, as by buying something ‘green’ or ethical. There has been some recognition recently of this ‘gap in the market’ so to speak though. In the last few years there has been a huge growth in both the diversity and popularity of schemes such as Oxfam’s ‘Giving Gifts’, where the present you give to somebody in fact benefits someone else in the developing world who actually needs a ‘gift’; an effective and accepted means of thoughtful wealth distribution.

We all know that we are in the better off half of the world’s population, but too often we feel powerless to effectively change this situation and help distribute global resources equitably. This is not made any easier by the way the media often portrays both poverty and ‘natural’ disasters as inevitable and unavoidable, lessening the responsibility one might feel as a ‘global citizen’. In this sense nearly everybody in our country is ‘middle class’, when you compare our levels of wealth to those of people across the world; because we do have non-essential income we can use this to make changes if we choose to.

We are currently living at a completely unsustainable level, consuming about three times more than we can afford to. Thus anything we do which stops the creation of waste or the usage of resources is good. This could be anything from not running a car, to composting, to using renewable energy, to reducing the amount of animal products we eat, to using reusable bags or cycling or buying clothes from charity shops. The range of options is sufficient for everybody, whatever their income, to make some lifestyle changes, not necessarily encompassing spending money or buying certain things, which will make a difference in making the world a more ‘green’ place.

In addition, ethical or green shopping options may not actually be much more expensive than what people are already buying, unless they are truly living on the bread line. A few examples: recycled toilet paper, fair-trade chocolate (especially at the Co-op!), fair-trade orange juice, bananas, tea and coffee, soya milk, tofu or other vegan options (especially when you work it out per portion!), and local fruit and veg.

For me, as a campaigner, the cheapest and most effective green thing to do is to campaign for differences in the world that it is hard to achieve on an individual level. People often feel powerless where government decisions or business actions are concerned but campaigning, and making your views known as a consumer and citizen, is one way to redress this lack of power, and best of all, it is pretty much free!