Political action driven by environmental values

Political action is closely aligned with the concept of “purchase voting” but involves much more than purchase or non-purchase. One participant undertakes a form of individual civic action by attempting to change organisational processes. Anton (Case 7), is actively involved in encouraging environmental responsibility within organisations and promoting sustainable business practices and packaging. Anton has even written several letters to companies in an attempt to influence them toward environmentally-responsible business operations.

Anton: “As a consumer I recognise that I have a part to play in making those items more financially sustainable because it takes thousands of people to influence a company. I have actually written to a few companies about their

Stephanie Hooper 146 packaging. One example would be Griffins about six or seven years ago.

Ginger nuts are an unbreakable biscuit, they can be packaged with one outer shell of packaging as they were for decades with no problems at all - they won‟t break. Griffins were introducing trays for all of their biscuits and they did that for Ginger nuts - and that was sort of just too much for me. So I wrote to them and complained about the fact that they had made trays as well as the outer wrapping. There was also a time where I was given a polypropylene sports-top and it was packaged ridiculously - as if it was going to be couriered around the world and back again. I wrote them a letter and they actually wrote back and said „we agree, and we are going to change the packaging‟. I noticed a few months later they had changed their packaging. So sometimes you can have an influence and sometimes you can‟t.”

Anton recognises that consumers influence market-based mechanisms, and are part of making environmental products more financially sustainable and viable. He also acknowledges that it takes thousands of people to influence change. However, Anton has approached some companies directly with his concerns and successfully influenced one organisation to change the packaging of a polypropylene sports-top.

Furthermore, Anton discusses the use of purchase and non-purchase as a form of voting.

Anton: “They [purchase/non-purchase] are in a way a vote, but the way that I think it works, is that it is a weak vote - if you are purely voting by purchasing something when it‟s not a campaign or you don‟t back it up with a letter.”

For Anton, writing letters to organisations and retailers is a way to bring environmental awareness to the marketplace. The desire to create, diffuse and educate environmental and social awareness is a primary goal of political consumption (Cherrier, 2009). Anton also discusses cooperative civic action (e.g.

protests and boycotts), which facilitate community empowerment by creating links between community members (Rissel, 1994).

Stephanie Hooper 147 Anton: “There is no doubt about it, I mean Cadburys tried to do a dodgy thing for the environment last year by getting their cocoa from an unsustainable source, and the public influenced Cadbury to make a change.”

Cooperative civic action requires a group of consumers with the same concerns to collectively work together to enforce behaviour or organisational change (Rissel, 1994), as was the case with the Cadbury example outlined by Anton. According to Wakefield et al. (2006) these civic actions promote individual empowerment and can potentially lead to significant organisational change toward greener consumption behaviour. Cooperative civic action ensures that organisations are held accountable for environmentally irresponsible practices through the reputational damage caused by negative publicity.

4.5.5. Section summary

This section has illustrated how the social environment can shape green consumption behaviour through the perception of social rewards and punishments. At present, social pressure to be “green” is mainly with regard to recycling and waste practices, it has not yet crossed over to green product purchases. The social desirability of

“green” encourages most participants to behave in accordance with green social norms for fear of others observing and critiquing their consumption behaviour. Public awareness of environmental issues and the conspicuous nature of some green consumption behaviour have made consumers more accountable for their non-environmental behaviour. For these reasons, “mainstream” (i.e., not-so-green) consumers may practice green consumption behaviour in public but not in private consumption situations. Meanwhile, because “green” consumers have internalised pro-environmental personal norms they are more likely to translate pro-environmental values regardless of the consumption situation.

Throughout the findings, several participants were involved in shaping the consumption behaviour of family, friends, neighbours and work colleagues. The approaches implemented by participants vary from very subtle manipulation of behaviour, to obvious and action-oriented approaches. The greening strategies employed by some participants include stimulating, controlling, facilitating, observing

Stephanie Hooper 148 and modelling green consumption behaviour using tactics of influence, power and persuasion. The findings highlight the personal effort some participants expend in order to encourage pro-environmental behaviour in other people.

Furthermore, some participants were involved in shaping the operations and business practices of organisations. The findings illustrate how consumers use purchase and non-purchase as votes and how they attempt to influence market-based mechanisms to deliver greener alternatives to the marketplace. Some participants are involved in civic action through writing letters and boycotting organisations with environmentally-irresponsible business practices. This section has emphasised how consumers themselves are consciously involved in supporting and encouraging other citizens and organisations to practice environmentally-responsible behaviour and contribute to social and organisational pro-environmental behaviour change.