GEF

Unit 10  |  Toward a Sustainable Future 216 10.2  Sustainable Consumer Choices How can we participate in our economy to improve sustain- ability and reduce the damaging impacts of our choices on the environment? As consumers who choose the products we buy and the services we use, we are all participants in our com- munities, economies, and environment. Taking an ecological, systems thinking approach to our environmental challenges, we can understand how our economic choices actively shape the world around us. We can make a conscious decision to consider how the production, use, and disposal of the products and services we buy affect the environment. As participants, our choices determine how sustainable our global society is. The challenge is that very often the choices we make are not clearly sustainable or unsustainable. We may have to make value judgements about what is more or less important for different people and organizations. One way people are choosing sustainability is by purchasing locally produced products. Products that are produced locally contain less embodied energy than items manufactured and shipped long distances. They represent less climate change impact, water use, and air pollution. Some researchers have questioned the benefits of “buy local” campaigns. They argue that local goods are less efficient to produce and therefore have a larger ecological footprint than goods produced in higher quantities. Still, many in the environ- mental community have championed locally produced goods as a cornerstone of a sustainable economy. Farmers markets, which typically promote local products, are also rapidly grow- ing in popularity. In the U.S., they have grown in number from roughly 2,800 in 2000 to more than 8,500 in 2015, accord- ing to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. CONSUMER A person who purchases goods and services. EMBODIED ENERGY The sum of energy inputs used to make a product, including extraction and refining materials, produc- tion, transportation, and disposal; embodied energy accounts for the total energy necessary for an entire prod- uct life cycle.