CSR.- Irresponsible consumption has “negative” consequences on natural resources, according to WWF

WWF recognizes that “until there is a disaster” it is difficult for people to be “aware” and change their consumption habits

MADRID, 22 (EUROPA PRESS)

Compulsive consumption has “dire” ecological consequences for the peoples of the South, according to a report by the world conservation organization WWF that points to Americans, Canadians and, to a lesser extent, Europeans as consumers who “waste irresponsibly.”

If these habits continue, it would take five planets to supply the entire population since, only in North America, sales during last Christmas reached record numbers.

For this reason, experts have set out to make society aware of the “existing relationship” between their purchases and the consequences of these on environmental deterioration and global warming.

According to the WWF, humanity “exceeded the planet’s ability to self-regulate in 1984.” In these 22 years, the levels of resource consumption have accelerated not only in North America and Europe but also in China and India, as well as some areas of Asia and Latin America, traditionally less consuming.

This rate of consumption, which for economists is a sign of the “healthy state” of the world economy, has caused so-called climate change, among other social and environmental problems, according to naturalists. However, the public remains unaware of the direct consequences of their actions.

INDIVIDUAL ACTIONS

As Monique Tilford, executive director of the Center for a New American Dream, an organization that advocates responsible consumption, told IPS News, “people don’t believe their individual actions make a difference.”

For example, an Asian-made computer that can be bought in the United States or Europe for $40 or $50 “may be the product of illegal logging in Indonesian forests,” Tilford said. This illegal action promotes criminal organizations, the loss of biodiversity, releases large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and causes the loss of land to indigenous peoples, the Report collects.

For all this, “it is necessary for people to become consumers with environmental and social awareness,” added Tilfod. Or what is the same, buy fewer things that are not essential for their subsistence, but are willing to spend more on products that do not harm the environment or the people of other nations.

The problem is, according to Tilfod, that “those who are willing to be more aware often don’t have the knowledge or information about what is better, and that is the role of organizations like ours.”

“It is very difficult for people to know where they come from and how the products they see in stores are made,” said the head of the Earth Policy Institute of the United States, Lester Brown.

Brown recalled that China manufactures a third of the world’s furniture, yet it has regulations that protect its forests. Wood imports have skyrocketed in recent years in the Asian country, widely exceeding 40 million cubic meters per year. In addition, the data shows that the re-export of forest products from China to the United States and Europe has increased by nearly 900% since 1998.

“Shortages cross borders quickly,” Brown said. “If Chinese furniture manufacturers don’t get trees in their country, they get them in Siberia, Myanmar, Papua New Guinea or Indonesia,” he added.

LOOK AWAY

Tilford recalls that, at the individual consumer level, “people are often so busy that they don’t want to know, or are unaware, that their behavior has environmental impacts like global warming, and they don’t make the slightest effort to change.”

“The social change that would be needed to be able to live sustainably will not happen without some kind of disaster causing the kind of suffering that drives people to change,” Tilford added.

Brown and Tilford argue that the American public should elect people who develop policies aimed at ensuring that the products sold in stores are sustainable, regardless of the country of origin.

“People from other countries risk their lives so that we can buy our gourmet products,” Tilford said, but until there is popular support “nothing will happen,” he concluded.