SOC317H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Juliet Schor, Ecological Footprint, Sustainable Consumption
November 29, 2019
SOC317 Shopping and Society
Lecture 12 – Consumer Society, Equity and Sustainability
• Key theme:
o Classic sociological tension between structure and agency
o Larger structural issues – when everybody updates their commodities, what happens
• What consumption does to the environment
o Causes for concern
o Juliet Schor
▪ Harvard economist – professor of sociology
▪ Multiple books – how economy relates to people and the environment
▪ How people engage with consumer culture and how that effects economy and
the environment
▪ Consumer culture is hard to recognize because it’s everywhere and we depend
on it – it cannot be seen and is seen as natural
o Undoing social construct
▪ If consumer society is a social construct, then it is dynamic & malleable,
contested & changeable.
o Consumption – dramatic increases
▪ Pre 2008, the world was on a global spending spree, led by the US
▪ Dramatic increases in consumption of apparel and consumer electronics
• People have and buy a lot more clothes and technology
▪ Increasing realms of life involve FMCG: fast-moving consumer goods
• Fashion and technology – implicated in things we buy for home
• Ex. Buy couch and assume they will get rid of it soon enough
• Not just clothing and electronics moving quickly but other goods that
used to be more durable
▪ 1/10 households now rents storage space
• These products take out a lot of environmental resources but also a lot
of physical space
▪ World of consumption has dramatic speed up in consumption
o Consumption is unequally distributed
▪ Purchasing power concentrated in the top 20% of the population
• Well-being went down in US – many people were doing well (elite) but
many others were not
▪ Growing gap between rich and poor
• Ex. Dollar store – doing well because of gap
▪ Rise of “new consumerism”: people want to consume like elites (even though
most people’s incomes are restricted).
• People have a relative consumption reference point which is the elite
seen on TV, instagram, and reality shows
• Not neighbor across the street
o Materiality Paradox
November 29, 2019
▪ As the symbolic value of consumption increases, the material pressure on the
planet also increases
▪ Explains why consumption is taking toll on planet
▪ Tied to symbols and images but also It uses up more resources
▪ Function of goods: less important;
• Still works but no longer attached to it – there is still function but not
liked anymore
▪ The symbolic aspects of consumption: more important
• We want things to be more fashionable, on point with trends, etc.
▪ Symbolic consumption relies on novelty and fashion cycles
• Our image is more important and we signal our worth through what we
symbolically consume
• Constantly changing – get something and soon enough it changes again
• Our consumption is so closely tied to things that are changing – which
ends up effecting the planet due to resource consumption
▪ “consumption is taking an escalating toll on the planet” (Schor, p. 27)
▪ Globally, 80% of discarded textiles go to landfill. Only 20% are reused or
recycled.
▪ There isn’t an effective market to move used things onto other bodies –
discarded textiles end up in landfills
o Planetary limits and boundaries
▪ Are we at our planetary limits?
▪ Overshoot – we are using more than we can
▪ 3 boundaries in danger zone: climate, nitrogen cycle, biodiversity
▪ Approaching limits in 4 boundaries: fresh water use, land use, ocean
acidification, phosphorous cycle
▪ In some ways there is wiggle room but in terms of certain systems, science is
dire and we are in overshoot
o Ecological footprint – how many hectares your spendage of resources takes up
▪ If everybody consumed like Americans, we would need 5 planets
▪ Country overshoot days – the day by which we take up our share of the world’s
resources each year
• Canada uses up by March
▪ Scientific concept – some countries are resource hogs
o We are living beyond planetary carrying capacity
▪ Clear signs for concern – we are consuming more than our share of resources
▪ Schor – we are 40% over our biocapacity
• Conceptualizing and making a change
o The barriers to consuming less
▪ State – bad and ineffective policies
▪ Capitalism – advertising and profits, different ideologies
▪ Change is hard – lack of money and lack of knowledge about change
• Easy to become cynical
• Unclear evidence and ambiguity
Document Summary
Lecture 12 consumer society, equity and sustainability: key theme, classic sociological tension between structure and agency, larger structural issues when everybody updates their commodities, what happens, what consumption does to the environment, causes for concern. Increasing realms of life involve fmcg: fast-moving consumer goods: fashion and technology implicated in things we buy for home, ex. Consumption is taking an escalating toll on the planet (schor, p. 27: globally, 80% of discarded textiles go to landfill. In some ways there is wiggle room but in terms of certain systems, science is dire and we are in overshoot: ecological footprint how many hectares your spendage of resources takes up. Identifying a solution requires to change the goal: g gives people more power, o opens people"s eyes to truth and happiness, a accounts for all costs. I am individual that"s going to save things one man show: concludes with recommendation that people should be optimistic imagine change.
