Lets face it: the evolutionary path to an
environmentally-friendly and sustainable lifestyle that
would help prevent our planet from draining it's limited
resources, still has a long way to go before achieving a
relevant resolution.
The rethorical discourse adopted by a new publication
from the United Nations Environment Programme,
entitled 'Talk the Walk: Advancing Sustainable Lifestyles through Marketing and Communications', has provoked a debate which focused on how, in a capitalist society driven by consumer demand and a blind quest for
maximum profit, the world´s population will ever
manage to close the 4/40 Gap (a phenomenon that, according to some surveys, reveals how 40% of consumers
say they're willing to buy greener products, but only 4% actually does) by simply promoting the use of mainstream communications and marketing strategies to change consumer culture.
Can we really coerce people to adopt a new lifestyle like
we do with fashion advertisements and other forms of
consumer-oriented advertising? Awareness, especially
among the young, is obviously one of the main issues
here; the use of effective communications strategies
addressing them seems to be the only way chosen
by the marketing intelligentia, economy gurus and a
wide range of overly-opinionated 'people in the know'.
But will mere persuasion be a sustainable and fare
solution, as is remarked by wimbi,
"to transfer to the next generation a planet at least
as good as the one we started off with"?
More details
environmentally-friendly and sustainable lifestyle that
would help prevent our planet from draining it's limited
resources, still has a long way to go before achieving a
relevant resolution.
The rethorical discourse adopted by a new publication
from the United Nations Environment Programme,
entitled 'Talk the Walk: Advancing Sustainable Lifestyles through Marketing and Communications', has provoked a debate which focused on how, in a capitalist society driven by consumer demand and a blind quest for
maximum profit, the world´s population will ever
manage to close the 4/40 Gap (a phenomenon that, according to some surveys, reveals how 40% of consumers
say they're willing to buy greener products, but only 4% actually does) by simply promoting the use of mainstream communications and marketing strategies to change consumer culture.
Can we really coerce people to adopt a new lifestyle like
we do with fashion advertisements and other forms of
consumer-oriented advertising? Awareness, especially
among the young, is obviously one of the main issues
here; the use of effective communications strategies
addressing them seems to be the only way chosen
by the marketing intelligentia, economy gurus and a
wide range of overly-opinionated 'people in the know'.
But will mere persuasion be a sustainable and fare
solution, as is remarked by wimbi,
"to transfer to the next generation a planet at least
as good as the one we started off with"?
More details
