Can Consumerism Save the World?

There’s a new business model. Its impact can be seen in the strategies of corporate executives, in the buying habits of retail customers, and in the marketing campaigns sweeping the developed world. It affects the way companies devote their resources and the way we spend our money. Consultants are brought in to help companies implement this concept, conferences are organized and well attended. It’s a model shaped around philanthropy, putting work and money behind improving society across the world. To put it another way: Global consciousness has become a fashion.

The prevailing stereotype of the corporate world is that of a massive amorphous machine that sells us stuff, takes our money, and converts it into even more money and even more stuff. It is a stereotype animated by old men in egregiously expensive suits (at the top) and faceless drones (at the bottom) and mass merchandise and greed. We fit in there somewhere too: the consumers who buy the stuff, whose money fuels the machine. Nowhere in this Corporate Stereotype is there a place for doing good. But what if “doing good”? were to actually become a part of the machine—a feature of the stuff that we buy, a part of the corporation’s objective? What if the simple act of consumerism could make the world a better place?

This form of global consciousness is not simply about giving away money (although that certainly plays a role). It’s about a dramatic shift in the corporate system itself. It’s about changing the way a business is operated to better facilitate an improvement in society. It’s about philanthropy that operates like a business, sometimes on a for-profit model, allowing for sustainable development. It’s about modifying market forces and trade practices—the tools that make capitalism work so well—toward new objectives.

Corporations are seizing upon this new business model in many different ways. This past summer, the World Business Council on Sustainable Development put together a “manifesto for tomorrow’s global business,”? which provided a guideline for companies to confront issues such as poverty and global warming. Adidas, Proctor & Gamble, and many others participated. Elsewhere, Peirre Omidyar, the founder of eBay, has helped to fund and facilitate initiatives in microfinance, which operates on the principle of granting small loans to the poor in third-world nations. Sir Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin brand, has pledged to invest $3 billion in the development of alternative fuels. Whole Foods Market, the world’s leading organic food supermarket, offsets 100% of the energy that it uses with wind power. Bill Gates has committed approximately $30 billion to improving education, global health, and other philanthropic aims.

We, the consumers, are participating through our buying habits. After all, none of these funds would be available without the financial success (read: our money) of their respective corporations.

Where does this consumerism-based social responsibility come from? It can’t simply be boiled down to altruism or higher ideals. Rather, it’s an attitude that is made possible by the unprecedented prosperity and abundance of the developed world. Many ordinary citizens in western society now have the disposable income to expand their buying decisions beyond a simple formula of cost vs. function. It has become an added benefit of our wealth that we now have the luxury to factor in a number of other traits when buying a product: environmental concern, fair trade, labor conditions, and the philosophical attitude of the company and its figureheads. Of course, this is not the case with all shoppers. There are still many people who never factor any of these issues into their buying decisions. But for an increasing number of consumers today, the act of buying something (from dish soap to a new car) is not only about how well it works, how nice it looks, how inexpensive it is. While all these old criteria still exist, a new characteristic has been gaining significance: How will this product, and the company that makes it, affect the world?

What if these corporations are simply taking advantage of this shift in consumer behavior? Couldn’t this all be just another cynical marketing ploy? A company might incorporate a marginal, largely symbolic (but very well publicized) gesture of goodwill without any larger shift in its fundamental business practice, and use the good press to continue with the same old greed and malfeasance. In fact, this is precisely the accusation that Mother Jones magazine lobs toward British Petroleum. Supposedly the “good”? energy company, BP has recently been making a big deal about solar power and renewable energy, even as they provided very little actual corporate backing for these initiatives (about one-sixth of one percent of total revenues came from solar power in 2004) and participated in an enormous organization-wide cover-up of pipeline corrosion and accusations of price fixing in the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Certainly this is not the only example. Just because more companies are turning a new philanthropic leaf does not mean that they are any less inclined to the flaws, hypocrisy, and deception of any other power structure. But rather than convict the system, we should seek ways to improve it. There are agencies that investigate whether the noble claims are actually met; there is the media, which can play a significant role in identifying what companies are doing and exposing fraud when it takes place. And there is the democracy of capitalism: the more that consumers buy, the more that big companies will notice.

Making a positive impact on the world is hard work. It requires personal sacrifice. It requires the giving of our time, our money, sometimes our livelihoods. So if this seems like an easy way out—an oversimplified excuse for avoiding real service or global commitment—that’s because it is. Which is precisely why it has the potential to work so well.