At the time of writing, if you enter “sustainable gift guide” into Google, you will be greeted with no fewer than 243,000,000 results. As someone who is prone to overthinking and never has any idea what to buy someone for Christmas, this seems like a welcome concept. It would appear to imply that the mass consumerism of Christmas shopping is gradually turning to more thoughtful, conscious purchases. Indeed, according to Rolling Stone’s gift guide, you can “feel good about giving while softening your ecological footprint” by purchasing a Soda Stream or a recycled plastic suitcase. Step aside Greta Thunberg – I’m going to be saving the world, one carbonated beverage at a time.
Yet, it seems that these guides are heavily prioritising the “feel good” part, and forgetting about the whole “ecological footprint” aspect. Rolling Stone suggests you buy the Soda Stream in question from Amazon. Women’s Health also provides a link to Amazon.com if you want to leave sustainable shampoo or organic oat milk powder under the tree this year (yes, apparently that is a thing). In fact, the vast majority of the gift guides I have looked at included at least one recommended present from Amazon. Amazon produced 60.64 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2020, so buying your gifts through there arguably is in itself an act of environmental degradation.
But, scarier to me than the thoughtlessness of these guides and the gifts that they promote is the ideology that underpins them and our conversations around sustainable shopping habits in general: by buying more, we are also doing more for the planet. We can continue to shop as much as we do, as long as what we are buying is labelled eco-friendly. We can go on as many holidays as we like, provided our suitcases are made of recycled materials.
These gift guides purport that we do not have to drastically change our habits, only tweak them. However, this is a scarily flawed logic. We may appease our climate consciences by buying something touted as “sustainable”, but in giving ourselves hope for the future of the world, we are diminishing the hopes of the climate itself.
These sustainable gift guides are heavily prioritising the ‘feel good’ part of gift giving
Forgive me if I am beginning to sound a bit preachy. Fear not – I too am guilty of buying from Amazon occasionally, and I certainly haven’t stopped Christmas shopping this year (though most of the presents I have bought so far have been for myself). These guides fascinate me, however, in what they indicate about our larger cultural mindset. We want to feel that we are helping the environment, but we don’t actually want to change our lives in any significant way. For instance, the rise in rented fashion. The past few years has seen a massive increase in the popularity of renting clothes and accessories, particularly designer pieces, instead of buying them. This is attractive, in part for economic reasons – you might be able to rent a dress for €20, rather than buy it for €200 – but mostly as an alternative to fast fashion, which contributes to the fashion industry’s massive detrimental impact on the environment (the fashion industry is responsible for 10 per cent of CO2 emissions yearly).
By renting an outfit instead of buying it, you can reduce the amount of clothes in landfill and the incessant production of clothes cheap enough to wear once and throw away (Shein, I’m looking at you). However, renting hasn’t quelled our demand for more and more clothes, it has only exacerbated it, and there have been recent queries as to the ecological effects of this practice. One study found that rental services have the highest potential impact on global warming, mainly due to the transport and packaging involved in delivery. Recycling, reusing items or simply reducing our consumption and using things for longer periods of time are all preferable options. Yet, renting allows us to have a whole new wardrobe every month, if we want, and still show up to a climate rally with a guilt-free mind (and probably fantastic shoes).
Even electric cars, so often hailed as the solution to climate change by private companies and governments alike, are not a perfect fix – far from it. They massively increase traffic, contribute to pollution and socioeconomic inequality – but a way in which we can spend money and expect to be able to continue our lives as normal.
We seem to ultimately believe that more money – and more stuff – will solve any problem we are presented with
When we find a solution that seems simple (buy something and the problem goes away), we don’t probe it because, deep down, we still believe that money can buy happiness. This is what I think it boils down to. It is intrinsic to our cultures and economic systems that we must profess the importance of social values, but still ultimately believe that more money – and more stuff – will solve our problems.
Remember when people on social media wanted Jeff Bezos to buy the actual Amazon rainforest? That’s taking it to the extreme, but I believe it epitomises a wider mentality. I’m not saying that money can’t solve environmental problems – it very much can, if invested wisely by governments or businesses. But, if there seems to be a way to buy something and help the environment that doesn’t involve any effort on our part, I think a closer look is required.
Sustainability is defined as meeting our current needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. If we want future generations to inherit a survivable world, we must change our idea of what we “need” to buy, and cross some of these so-called “sustainable” gifts off the list.
