Researchers Carys Egan-Wyer and Jon Bertilsson have looked into this from a marketing perspective and point to some instances where their field could make a difference.
“Marketing in the service of companies has done a tremendous job of creating desire for consumption, leading to increased growth, revenues, job creation and yes, the climate crisis”, says marketing researcher Carys Egan-Wyer.
Her colleague, researcher Jon Bertilsson, acknowledges that it is much harder to look towards the future in an optimistic way and create a campaign that gives you hope, dreams and a desire to consume less in order to save the planet, than it is to just cater to short term wants.
They use Emma, who shared her story on Lund University’s Sustainable Travel Stories blog as an example. She made the bold decision to take the train from Sweden to a meeting on the island of Mallorca rather than flying the two-to three-hour route. The trip there and back took 108 hours on trains and boats and cost twice what it would have cost to fly, but it absolutely made a statement. So why isn’t the statement more inspiring?
According to Carys and Jon the answer is clear; The climate crisis has a marketing problem. Even though they applaud endeavors to normalize alternative and reduced consumption and acknowledge the significance of trailblazers like Emma, something else is needed if behaviors are to change on a larger scale.
“In marketing terms, if we want to promote sustainable futures, we must create desire for them. Not only for the end goal, but especially for the process, the everyday way of life to get there.It’s not about the stuff we give up, it’s about the time we gain, the connections with others and meaningful experiences. To get there we must first be able to imagine this future,” says Carys Egan-Wyer.
“If we want to promote sustainable futures, we must create desire for them”
Jon and Carys suggest that critical marketers look to degrowth as a way to imagine what a truly sustainable future could look like. “Degrowth is an intentional scaling down of economic production and consumption, with the ultimate goal of establishing a post-growth society where human wellbeing is increased and ecological limits are respected.”, says Jon Bertilsson.
Instead of emphasizing the things we need to sacrifice to live sustainability (like air travel, cars, and fast fashion), the two authors say marketers should help people envision the positive aspects of a post-growth future: the joy of slow travel and the richness of community engagement. By highlighting how we might enjoy a less stressful life with more meaningful social connections and less time spent shopping for trending products, we can create an optimistic vision of sustainable living that people actually desire.
Carys and Jon propose that promoting what Jens Rennstam and Alexander Paulsson term a craft-oriented production would be one way of going in this direction. Even if this does not maximize production, output and sales, it can still lead to the employment of more people.
Rennstam and Paulsson put forth that more labour-intensive craft-production has led to increased employment even when the amount of goods produced, sold, and consumed decreases. An example of the recent development in the American beer industry is indicative of the above relationship. Between 2008 and 2016 the amount of American brewery workers more than doubled, and the number of breweries sextupled as a result of the increasing number of craft breweries, while during the same time-period, overall beer consumption decreased.
Certain fashion brands like Patagonia, which produce large quantities of clothing, have adopted some of the ideals of craft-oriented production. They seem to treat their garments as epistemic objects, respecting the quality-dimension of goods, offering extensive repair services, and life-long product guarantees in order to take good care of “their objects” and to make them last longer.
In their book, Bertilsson and Egan-Wyer argue that marketing researchers and practitioners have a crucial role to play in reimagining and promoting alternatives to growth capitalism.
“After all, this is what marketers do best: creating desire for things we don’t yet know we want”, says Carys Egan-Wyer
The book “Marketing in the Climate Crisis – Imagining Post-Growth Futures” is available for purchase on the Routledge homepage.
Marketing in the Climate Crisis. Imagining Post-Growth Futures – routledge.com