The other day I went to a well known supermarket with my girlfriend to pick up some of the afore mentioned bits and pieces. My girlfriend asked me to grab some oranges so I dutifully hunt down some of the delicious spherical, segmented delights. After locating the orange section (and it was quite a section!) I start trying to figure out which oranges are most sustainable. Obviously oranges don't grown in the UK, well not in East Anglia anyway, so I'm looking for something in Europe, no packaging and Fair Trade/Organic. There are quite a lot with no Organic/Fair Trade labeling and they're in net bags so they are immediately out of contention. I'm left with two choices:
1. Organic, Fair Trade, in net packaging, grown in South Africa.
2. Not Organic, not Fair Trade, loose (no packaging), grown in Spain.
Where are the loose (unpackaged), Organic, Fair Trade Oranges which have been grown in Europe? How can I choose between the options I am presented with? Do I go with the polluting and exploitative but unpackaged with less CO2 oranges, or the ethically grown but packaged CO2 engorged oranges? Here's an alternative perspective of my two choices:
1. Pros - Sustainable, planet friendly agricultural methods; a happy, fairly treated farmer.
Cons - turtle murder due to ingestion of the net packing mistaken for a jelly fish; irreversible climate change.
2. Pros - Avoided turtle murder; and keeping the global temperature increase closer to 2°C
Cons - Increased possibility that female fish in local waterways may grow testes; exploited farmers.
How do these issues weigh up against each other when they are all so inherently different but intricately linked?
I've noticed that when something is Organic or Fair Trade, or labelled with something like that, it almost always comes in packaging. Be it recycled, or recyclable, or biodegradable, or something else, it always seems to come in packaging. They want you to say "Hey look, that's ORGANIC, and by buying it I'm saving the world!!!" (Mainstream Approach). I always wonder how they decided to become an Organic producer. I would like to think that they are not doing it just to sell more stuff. Though I also think if it was because they believed in sustainable consumption and development they would be more aware of issues around the topic, such as reducing packaging. If you're going to be Organic, please pay attention to why organic practices were introduced, go all the way and do everything right, not just bits and pieces.
I've used oranges as an example but you can barely walk anywhere in the supermarket without being faced with different products with the same dilemma. Bananas, Apples, Chicken, Broccoli, Beef, Pork, Lamb, Garlic, Baken Beans, Runner Beans, Black Beans, String Beans, Butter Beans (sorry, beans came up in a lecture the other day), everything seems to suffer from the same oversight.
On a related not, I think it would be really useful, and interesting, to make it compulsory for all products to have their carbon footprint printed on their labels. People have gone to the effort of working out how many calories, grams of fat, sugar, cholesterol, potassium, carbohydrates, saturate fat, unsaturated fat, etc. I really don't think it would be too much effort to add CO2 emissions to this list. You could even have a recommended daily/monthly/yearly allowance or set up some kind of points scheme for keeping your consumer carbon footprint below a given figure over a pre-determined period of time.
Well I'm sure you are dieing to know which Oranges I chose! I chose turtle murder and irreversible climate change, but in reflection I think I will go for trans-gender fish but a livable climate next time.
Hi Ian,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your post on supermarkets.
I completely agree with you how are consumers expected to make a green choice that isn't even there?!?!
More over to make this choice accessible to those who unlike us wouldn't spend 2 minutes on each product working out it's sustainability!
How about a traffic light system of labelling?
Red for highly unsustainable based on carbon emissions, non organic non fairtrade vs green for the reverse sustainable product?
& perhaps a system of only selling produce in season- maybe this is a bit too radical for our times but just a thought!
What do you reckon?
also you may find the 2 podcasts on SC blackboard site useful - they're on CF labelling and the sustainability of supermarkets themselves
Katie
MSC "marine stewardship council"
ReplyDeleteOpen question, how many people have heard of it and know what it is? Please post.
http://www.msc.org/
They promote and have strict criteria for sustainable fisheries, check there site, and get there cook book off Amazon. For those of you out there who think I'm full of hubris, all the modern initiatives of sustainability that people mention, how truely sustainable are they? Compare these initiatives with that of the Hastings fish industry, still going stong after 1000 years, the methods haven't changed, the ships haven't changed, the fleet size hasn't changed; and most importantly its a fishery that hasn't collaped, compare this to: North Sea Cod, or the defining collapse in the late 20th Century of the NW Atlantic Cod, off the coast of Newfoundland, overnight 40,000 fishermen were without jobs-http://www.sams.ac.uk/research/departments/ecology/feature-story/fish-stock-collapse-and-ecosystem-change-in-northwest-atlantic-ecosystems (just a quick search I did). This links quite nicely with the idea of "The tragedy of the Commons" which I encourage people to at least wikipedia or google. A good film to watch on over fishing is "The End of the Line" you can watch this on google vids, but a much reduced version; though the essentials are there. So back to the point. MSC fish costs more money, and in return you get:
-quality
-truer reflection of the cost (its got drawbacks, but its better than most other things out there in the shops)
-it helps sustain communities
-sustainable (to an extent...not enough time to go into commercial fisheries here, but do some research and check out the Commons stuff; then you'll see the connections).
But in order to pay for quality, or these more ethical products, one needs to earning significantly more; or going back to my frugality statement yesterday, learning to go without, have fish as a treat, rather than a god-given right.
This is the false economy many of us have been sold by maketeers; advertisers; government etc that we should have meat with every meal. Just to clarify, I'm not endorsing any life style changes here. But the simple fact of the matter is; using Tom Friedmans words ..."as the world becomes flat.." i.e. as Chindia's rapidly expanding middle class comes onto main stage, are they expecting to consume as much fish as we do? Fish is but one example of a plethora of many other examples out there; meat should be priced fairly, this would have beneficial effects on:
-food security
-decreased bovine emissions
-increased ethical upbringing of animals (the reader is pointed to Film, Inc. on google vids, click on any of the Chinese links for the full film)
-decreased national health costs, and increased health of a population eating less meat- terrestrial and marine.
I think that's enough, but these issues aren't as straight forward as they appear. A good case in hand is the complete joke with organics.
In a nutshell; people are already starving in NICs (newly industrialising countries) and LEDC (less economically developed countries). If the North/ West were to seriously commit to organics, there'd never be enough food for the entire population, which as of this post stands at 7.5 billion. (http://www.ibiblio.org/lunarbin/worldpop) If then in 40 years time there were 9 billion mouths, or perhaps more, how much more suffering should be inflicted on the poor of this world, just because we in the post-industrial economies want to feel good about ourselves, is indiscriminate, inhumane and self-righteous. Unfortunately the only way to address this rubicon is by GMOs etc, which are perverse, showing how folly and hubris.
That's enough from me, I don't wish to patronise, or belittle, but this is a good forum from which as a group of 40 individuals taking a module together can really learn about the more important issues-rather than the big, seamingly more important recent developments.
Its interesting you mention the carbon footprint label being should become compulsory. However there are a number of flaws with this system:
ReplyDelete1) cost
2) education
I will elaborate on these now:
1) cost- ultimately one cannot escape the class system when discussing these issues. How is an blue collar worker expected to pay for essentials when they pay disproportionaly more tax than their richer counterparts? Also, the nature of the jobs they do, nearly always leads to chillin out from Friday-Sunday; maybe drinking a lot? I don't know, but the point is, working class people aren't financially as free to part with (even though the cost of food is stupidly cheap historically, due to food and agriculture being subsidised by fossil fuels) their money (disposable income) because there's less of it, and so they have to make it go much further; hence the poorer quality food (in most cases, though there are exceptions, as not all working class people eat nutritionally dead, petroleum based foods)i.e. non-organic, and ignore the equity issue altogether, because it costs more to consume/ purchase fair trade products. Whereas the middle and upper classes have more money to afford these things, as well as having the moral hindsights (though again, not every member of the bourgeoisie will conform to this, for instance they may eat fish which will be extinct in a few years time, whilst simultaneously depleting the only source of food for indiginous communities off the coast of Africa, in particular the Ivory Coast, already being savagely raped by the EU and its fishing loby; sorry for the digression and language).
2) This is an educational issue. Again, coming back to the class argument, and the many failings of society, perpetuated by our elites. Essentially the middle classes attend the better schools, there children are more likely to carry on with post-16 education and university. This increases there awareness, and as you know, when they reach university, they tap into a vast human resources pool. Whereby differing ideologies intermingle, increasing their experience, and making them more informed citizens. Thereby middle classes+ are more likely to be informed (to an extent I appreciate this) about such labels, and will likely have heard the pros and cons etc regarding them. Contrast this with your average blue collar worker, who's access to education is likely only to have reached 16, maybe college. The difference is, unless they are highly passionate people, informed, are good at networking etc, most people will be anathema to any type of label; perhaps not even noticing it. For instance, back in April, I began collecting information on the fish Sainsbury's sold, recording lot's of info, but focusing on two key parameters:
price
label
The price more often than not often reflected poor quality, cancerous perhaps even mutanagenic fish, especially farmed "organic" Salmon, perhaps the single greatest scam in the fish isle. Anyway, there's a link between fish cost and quality, look yourself. There's a label for sustainably caught fish called: -
the bottom post is the first part, just to clarify, the bloody thing messed up
ReplyDeleteJust remembered what I meant to post here, kinda went off on one; carry this card around with you when you eat in restaurants and visit the fish counter; then you'll be (everyone) much more informed citizens, enjoy:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.edf.org/page.cfm?tagID=1521
but specifically this:
(dated, so google for more up-to-date version)
http://www.edf.org/documents/1980_pocket_seafood_selector.pdf
Katie, I have often thought about some form of labeling system to reflect a products sustainability, and I think some form of traffic light system would work really well for food. Taking it a step further would be to propose a system that covered all consumer products, but this poses problems for a standardized system, as some products would inherently have higher ecological footprints so would always be red (i.e. oil based products). Maybe different indicator systems would need to be adopted for different consumer categories. However, this then poses the problem of educating people about all the new labeling without causing information overload and loosing interest. I think food would be a good place to trial such a scheme though as I think it would make an effective test area.
ReplyDeleteAlex, I am a huge supporter of sustainable fishing, which has been one of the most difficult changes for me because I love seafood! Thanks for the links, I use http://www.fishonline.org/ and when I was across the pond I used monteray bay aquariums sustainable fishing guide. I recognize the problem we are going to face with the developing countries but if we are to sustain the fisheries we need to find alternatives to support this new demand. I think that the developing world needs to start taking the initiative and reduce our consumption to set an example. Not that this will happen any time soon but its a nice thought. I was surprised to find how many fish can be farmed and I assume you are aware of the issues that fish farming causes. The only answer seems to be consume less fish, end of story.