Most environmental stress is "a direct function of human consumption." Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands have sustainable consumption policies and have merged with networks of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to advance sustainable consumption agendas. In the United States, however, sustainable consumption has not received as much political attention.
The President’s Council on Sustainable Development, established by the Clinton administration in 1993, issued reports, but never explicitly considered consumption. President Bush showed even less interest. Policymakers have generally failed to address the critical nexus of consumption, lifestyle and environment. Sustainable consumption is seen to conflict with policy priorities that favor perpetuation of economic growth, consumer sovereignty, wasteful energy use and the unlimited amassing of material possessions. To gain attention of U.S. policymakers, sustainable consumption must not conflict with these policy priorities.
Only under rare conditions does the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) take up causes related to food contamination such as public consumption of PCB-poisoned fish. Nutrition is not usually an issue with which the EPA is concerned. Governmental entities that do periodically express interest in issues at the nexus of environment and nutrition are blocked by the politically powerful Department of Agriculture.
As for the role of corporations, agricultural interests and prominent food-processing companies have become experts in manipulating the regulatory system in their favor. Food producers seek to ensure that elected officials select political appointees to oversee dietary agencies who are sympathetic to their interests and they invoke “scientific uncertainty” to prevent any administrative processes that might endanger their commercial agendas. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has declined to modify its guidelines to urge consumers to lower their overall caloric consumption. Instead, the FDA recommendation advises: "Choose a diet that is low in saturated fat and cholesterol and moderate in total fat."
An important concern related to sustainable consumption is nutrition. U.S. agricultural production in terms of calories is twice the biological needs of the population. This massive surplus has generated market conditions in which food is widely available and inexpensive throughout most of the country. Mass quantities of accessible food in economically advanced societies has led to individual difficulties to control body weight and epidemics of diabetes, hypertension, coronary heart disease and other chronic health disorders. Due to the hypercompetitive market in the food industry, corporations use aggressive tactics to sell surplus; food producers have exploited the fast-paced contemporary lifestyle by selling unhealthy fast foods and convenience foods and snacks. Creative food corporations use a variety of other strategies. The “supersizing” strategy—the marketing tactic of offering a greater quantity for a lower price—has recently gained popularity. By increasing portion size and thereby calorie content at an insignificant cost, fast-food companies exploit the consumer instinct to seek value and to thus compel them to spend more money.
Thus the food industry’s drive for profit has encouraged overconsumption, resulting in serious health problems. According to Vandana Shiva, the second law of thermodynamics forecasts that resource wasteful economic development inevitably becomes dangerous to long term human survival. Shiva also argues that political problems concerning ecology in industrialized countries are grounded in the underlying conflict between long term survival and short term over-production and overconsumption.
Ecology, nutrition, and consumption are all structural functions of the economic system. In pursuit of profit, corporations have facilitated overconsumption of unhealthy foods, regardless of the long-term detriment to public health.
Issues facing societies today must be perceived as interconnected. Social institutions must promote egalitarianism, ecological awareness, democracy and political participation. We should seek to critically reflect upon the foundations of dominant consumer culture and how this culture relates to contemporary problems.
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