Matt Chat — Confessions of an addicted consumer!
Of the 60 or so flights I took last year, I travelled 185,426km; which is the equivalent of 22 tons of CO2 emitted… or the equivalent of 46 barrels of oil!
Hi, my name is Matt Juden-Bloomfield, I’m 27 and I’m your typical millennial; lover of all thing’s tech, avid socialite, avid traveller and most pressingly… avid consumer.
Now generally, I consider myself to be a pretty decent guy, presentable, remember friends’ birthdays, hold open doors, thank my uber drivers, tip wait staff and provide an almost weekly supply of home baked cakes to my neighbours.
But recently I’ve been reflecting, thanks in part to the trifecta of COVID-19, living on my own and recently starting my masters in sustainability leadership; giving me both the space and the academic knocking to elude me to this horrible realisation which I’m here today to confess.
I’m Matt, 27 and I’m a consumer. A greedy, out of control, capitalist market fuelling, fossil fuel guzzling, marketing zombie and environment destroying, consumer.
Amazon prime — I use it almost daily (including for my groceries…why would I carry it all?!); streaming services? Apple+, Netflix, Disney+, Prime — I’ve got them all; Pret coffee subscription — it was basically invented for me and travel loyalty schemes? Gold British Airways, Gold Air New Zealand, Diamond Hilton, Avis Preferred, Amex Gold … it goes on — you name it I’m on it. Which got me thinking… a lot.
I work hard, play hard and love to travel — and have been blessed with jobs that have seen me collaborate frequently with teams all over the globe; coupled with a family split between New Zealand, Ireland and the US — I’ve done a lot of it. But focusing in on this for a second and looking at the numbers — it’s nauseating reading…
Of the 60 or so flights I took last year, I travelled 185,426km; which is the equivalent of 22 tons of CO2 emitted… or the equivalent of 46 barrels of oil, 3.5 homes electricity use for the year or the energy needed to charge 2,531,260 smart phones!!! Now in order to offset this, I’d need the output of 25 acres of trees for a full year or to plant 328 trees grown for 10 years to sequester that amount of carbon (EPA 2020). Which is frankly bonkers.
And I’m not alone in this, there were over 4.5bn scheduled passenger boarded on commercial flights in 2019 (Statista 2020). Flying like so many things in our life, is easier, cheaper and more accessible than ever before. In 1941 it cost $4,810 to fly from Boston to LA and took over 15 hours and 12 stops; today it costs just over $400, takes around 6 hours and is a nonstop flight (Airlines.org 2020).
So, who’s to blame? Well, as consumers we’re pretty shallow — we believe what we’re told and don’t dig much deeper than the glossy marketing ads of glamorous men and women jet setting from city to city, that punctuate our daily tube journeys, Instagram feeds and printed press. I for one, knew that flying wasn’t the most sustainable thing to do (particularly in premium classes!) — but I’m actively rewarded for doing so. Loyalty rewards like fast track security and first class lounge access — making the next flight even more enticing; double Avios promotions — making my next flight even cheaper; and 3 points per £ on my Amex everyday spending … making it almost effortless to accrue the status and rewards that make the flying, that bit more addictive.
As a consumer if I were made more aware of the negative externalities generated by my behaviour, like a smoker is with the warnings on a cigarette packet, then I know that my conscience and guilt would change my behaviour far quicker than David Attenborough’s documentaries or a few extreme weather events in the news.
The same is true of other consumption, if you knew the cocoa beans in your favourite chocolate bar had been cultivated using slave labour (as sadly almost all are) — would you still buy it? If you knew that the steak you were going to eat for dinner took nearly 1400l of water to grow, would you perhaps swop it out for a Quorn steak? I know that I would — and so this is exactly where I think society and consumer businesses owe a duty to our planet and indeed us as consumers to make clearer, the impact of our actions … that they’re actively encouraging, promoting and driving.
So, what now? Well, it’s worth stating that this is my own personal reflection and journey towards being more sustainable, you, as you’re entitled to, will have your own theories, thoughts and next steps to aid your own journey to sustainability. But, for myself… and as a newly outed addict, I need to slowly wean myself off my addictive consumption. But the first step (the hardest step they say) is the admission. So, tick one!
Thankfully (albeit painfully), due to COVID-19, travel has been all but off limits this year — which has vastly improved my carbon footprint … but let’s face it — I didn’t have much of a say in the matter. Next up, is my eating and shopping habits — this year I’ve made a concerted effort to move to a more plant-based diet; cutting out meat from my weekly shop and treating it as a ‘special treat’ having learnt of the devastating impact cattle farming has on our climate. Then there’s the packaging, I’ve never cared much about packaging — blithely putting every plastic wrapper into the recycling, on the naïve assumption it’ll be sorted … and yet a quick glance at most vegetable or salad packages in your fridge will show you the same sorry message “Not yet recycled”. Finally, the coffee pods I use, forgetting the coffee stuck inside makes them almost completely non-biodegradable, I would throw them into the recycling bin… but I’ve now invested in a pod inverter which helps me compost the coffee and recycle the aluminium outer. Together, these small changes I’m reflecting on and consciously making, I hope will add up to a greater aggregate impact on my sustainability. The clincher, and my leadership journey in all of this, how I can inspire others as I go.
Thus, today begins my journey as a more conscious consumer, first up I’m going to quell my consumption and with Christmas on the horizon (and my birthday!), this is a perfect test of my staying power and ability to influence my family and friends towards more sustainable choices.
Watch this space….
MJB, October ‘20
References:
https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gas-equivalencies-calculator
https://www.statista.com/statistics/564717/airline-industry-passenger-traffic-globally/
