Ethical Consumer Week 2020 - Key Takeaways
I spent most of last week plugged into Zoom.
Covid may be keeping us apart but, as we’ve seen during our various lockdowns and tiers and second lockdowns, it also has a way of bringing us together.
Ethical Consumer normally hosts an annual one day conference in London to gather readers together and discuss the most pressing issues of the day. This year we missed the random chats, but the fact we could all connect from the comfort of our own home actually made the events available to far more people than would otherwise be the case. And I do mean events plural - the Ethical Consumer team pulled together over 30 discussions, webinars and ‘open cafes’ with topics ranging from tax reform to the Palestinian olive harvest, libraries of things to resisting corporate power.
It was a fascinating, educational, at times overwhelming but ultimately inspiring week that has left me with 1,001 ideas and a notebook full of scribbles that will take me days to decipher.
To condense everything down into a single blog would be both impossible and a disservice to the range of topics we discussed. Instead I’ve put together my 4leaf 4 key takeaways that wove their way through the entire week.
Community is key.
On day one I met a pensioner who was creating a pop up to educate passerbys in her town centre as to the importance of regenerative ecological practices and community cooperation. She was also - at 72 - a member of Extinction Rebellion. Later in the week I met someone who was about 40 years her junior who had recently chained himself to the local HQ of a very large bank as part of his own Extinction Rebellion work. Having completed a PhD in glaciology, his findings had so perturbed him that he decided to ditch academia to become an activist by night and join a bank watchdog by day - tracking financial institutions’ investment choices and shining a light on their increasingly unsavoury profiteering. Two extreme ends of the spectrum, but everyone else I met in between was just as passionate about helping to move the sustainability agenda forward. Every conversation I had was an absolute eye opener.
Creating and keeping a community of like-minded individuals is one of the most important ways to keep yourself motivated and engaged - that goes for anything, but particularly for social impact entrepreneurs as it often feels like you’re walking up a very steep hill by yourself! I might not have met any of these people ‘in real life’ but I feel tapped into a group of forward-thinking, determined individuals who cumulatively are helping to make the world a better place.
2. You can’t do everything.
This is basically a subsection of community but an important point in its own right. Everyone who attended was passionate about creating a fairer, more just global society whilst acting to reverse climate change. Creating a regenerative circular economy, switching to renewable energy, ensuring capitalism and democracy work for everyone are unbelievably huge tasks - whilst you can be committed to the overarching aims, you can’t be involved in all the moving parts. Simply, you cannot do everything. One of the delegates was considering a return to education and asked the panellists whether he would be more effective retraining as a journalist, lawyer or economist. The answer was unanimous that any of them - used in the right way - would be hugely beneficial but it didn’t matter which. The more important thing was that he chose something to keep him engaged for the long run and commit to 100%. You're far more effective if you commit to something 110% than if you commit to 10 different things at 10% (that’s the coach in me talking). In building your community as broadly as possible, you learn to trust that someone has it covered - whatever “it” might be.
3. It’s all about willpower
I’ll take an example that shocked me - I knew that big banks continue to fund oil and gas extraction and therefore climate change. I had a vague idea it was in the billions and knew that the British bank Barclays was in the top 10. I had no idea of the scale. JP Morgan Chase invested just short of $65 billion in 2019. That’s one bank in one year. Overall investment in fossil fuel from the largest 35 banks topped $735.6 billion. From 2016 - 2019 those banks invested $2.75 trillion into dirty energy.
Two point seven five trillion.
Estimates vary wildly on the potential cost of the US Green New Deal; anywhere between $51-$93 trillion over 10 years. Inaccurate stats aside, the point here is that capital is not the problem. There are thousands of banks around the world, plus pensions, hedgefunds and tax havens to add to the capital flowing through the big 35 - ie there’s more than enough money to fund a green transition - the sticking point is willpower.
Whilst individual efforts remain critical because consumer pressure leads to changes in company policy, we also need to recognise that it’s not homeowners refusing to turn their tellies off at the plug, or go vegan on Mondays, that will power the gigantic level of change and speed we need in order to meet anything like the Sustainable Development Goals or Paris Climate Agreement reductions in global temperatures.
4. Let’s be optimistic.
That being said I don’t want to be a doomster - there is real reason for hope. Listening to the people I mentioned above, plus many of the other c.600 delegates, was inspiring enough. Everyone was encouraged to formulate and share their main takeaways. A big part of many people’s takeaways was an extensive to-do list; concrete actions they planned to undertake rather than just nice ideas. So already there are 600 people working even harder to create positive change both in their local communities and the wider world. In a funny way I was also cheered by the stories of corporate greed that loomed large over much of the week. If so few - relatively speaking - corporations can have such outsized negative effects, just imagine what might happen when they finally flip the switch and start pouring those untold billions into the green agenda (I’m looking at you JP Morgan et al). We’ll start feeling the effects very quickly indeed. John Elkington, so-called godfather of sustainability says that the next 10 to 15 years will be the most dynamic, challenging and exciting years of his life; tangible change will come suddenly, profoundly and with increasing speed. The inflection point is almost within sight. It also helps to look to the past as inspiration for the future - leaded petrol, acid rain and CFCs have all gone the way of the dodo thanks to sustained pressure campaigns started by normal folk like you and I. It might have taken years but it happened at the end.
Don’t get me wrong, there is no simple solution to the problems we face today but we know what we need to do and there are certain portions of society that are already doing it.…I don’t want to come over all Oprah Winfrey but last week left me feeling more optimistic, determined and supported than I have done in a long time. Thank you Ethical Consumer. Until next year.
