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Michael is on a quest to get his environmental footprint as low as humanly possible. So he built his own off-grid Tiny House. But downsizing and minimizing weren’t enough. He had to take more drastic measures, altering his lifestyle in some extreme ways, all in the name of saving the planet. But when it comes to his goal, he still feels in over his head. He doesn’t know if all the downsizing, minimizing, reducing, reusing, recycling, and sacrificing make a difference. It’s time to bring in the experts.
Join Michael as he sits down with scientists, policymakers, industry leaders, and environmental experts to figure out how to effectively reduce his footprint in all aspects of life. From food and fast fashion to cars and caskets, he gets into what the worst culprits really are and how we can all make more informed choices when it comes to the impact we have on the planet.
If you have feedback or would like to be a guest on In Over My Head, please email: info@inovermyhead.com
(00:01):
Well, I'm in over my head. No one told me Trying to keep my footprints small was harder than I thought it could be. I'm in over my head. What do I really need? Trying to save the planet oh will someone please save me? Trying to save the planet oh will someone please save me?
(00:25):
Welcome to In Over My Head. I'm Michael Bartz. My guest today is Marlyne Sahakian. Marlene is an associate professor in sociology at the University of Geneva, specializing in the theme of consumption from a sustainability perspective. Her research focuses on the link between environmental concerns, daily social practices and social equity with the sociology of consumption as her main approach. She's a founding member of SCORAI Europe, a network for research and action and sustainable consumption, and is the chair of the Consumption Research Network of the European Sociological Association. Marlene publishes in journals related to sociology and sustainability and is authored several books including co-authoring Consumption Corridors, living a Good Life Within Sustainable Limits. Welcome to In Over My Head, Marlene.
(01:03):
Thank you for having me Michael.
(01:05):
So, while looking into the literature on de-growth, I came across the book Consumption Corridors, living a Good Life Within Sustainable Limits, which I found educational and many themes within. It resonated with me as one of the books seven Contributing Authors. I feel fortunate to be able to talk with you and I'm looking forward to discussing some of the ideas in the book. I think it might be helpful to start by providing a brief synopsis of consumption corridors.
(01:25):
First of all, it's a real, real pleasure to be presenting this book. And as you said, I'm one of several authors and certainly another author might have brought another perspective to our conversation today. But for me, consumption corridors is really about recognizing that sufficiency is about limits and the good life and that we can at the same time meet human needs and live a good life while also consuming, not necessarily less, although that's probably the direction we need to head in. But enough, and it's that definition of sufficiency that I like in consumption corridors, this idea that we have a maximum and a minimum a maximum above which if we over consume others cannot live the good life and a minimum below which people are not able to live a good life.
(02:14):
Yeah, and I found that idea in general, just really intriguing, cuz I think it's very easy, especially in North America, you know, we don't like to talk about limits, we like to be unlimited and that kind of conversation can be tricky. And so one thing I appreciate about the book was really focusing on the good life and kind of the positive side of things. It's not necessarily about putting hard limits on your lifestyle, but there's there's more to it. There's more more there. And that's something I'm really looking forward to teasing out and, and talking about with you. Yeah. So I guess, yeah, let's, let's just get into it. Tell me more about the good life.
(02:45):
Well, as you say yourself, I mean, for many years those of us working on sustainability issues have started from the point of the problem, let's say the problem of carbon emissions, the problem of biodiversity loss, the problem of energy usage, food waste, what have you. And what I find rather compelling is this idea that we could start with the goal in mind and then work our way back to understand how to live the good life with the resources that we have available to us, many of which are non-renewable. So it's sort of a, a different way or a shift in the argument. I find, and as you yourself say, the good life is compelling. It is a more congenic, more positive way of thinking about sustainability. And I'm quite convinced based on my own research that I've done with citizens in communities, that people really are able to grapple with the good life and make a distinction, which is essential between desires and needs and between needs and the means of satisfying those needs.
(03:50):
Yeah, no, that's a a good point. So let's kind of break those apart a bit. So what's the difference between a need and a desire?
(03:59):
So it will depend on your background and how you yourself define these words. In the book, we defined needs as human needs, human needs that are potentially fundamental in some language, some language that are definitely limited in number that are sable and that are not interchangeable. And so we're tending here towards something that, you know, anthropologists might frown at a little bit. And it's this idea that there are a set of universal needs and for some there are nine, for others there might be three. And here we're standing on the shoulders of giants cuz discussions around human needs really engage with a lot of very brilliant minds and philosophers. What we do in the book is in the Annex we propose different lists of needs so that people we, we don't impose a choice, let's say. And we offer a range of needs lists of needs that people can draw from, but they do share some similarities.
(04:57):
For example, the need for participating in society and having a voice, the need for feeling safe and protected and being able to distinguish those needs from the desire to have a larger TV set or the desire to go on vacation in Thailand, which in our language, at least in this book, are very different from human needs. I should also mention that one of our co-authors, Antonietta Di Giulio with her colleague have spoken about protected needs. I like this as well because protected needs take us to what society can organize for and protect. And we cannot organize societies to fulfill everyone's unlimited desires, but we can organize societies to meet unlimited set of needs for all people today and in the future.
(05:47):
Yeah, no, I think that idea of protected needs is, is a, a great addition as well for sure. Now, maybe tell me a little bit more about that.
(05:53):
The idea of protected needs is, is really what can society plan for and organize and maybe it helps us differentiate needs from more subjective understandings of well-being such as happiness and life satisfaction. So for example, I live in a city where public education is free and accessible healthcare system is a bit expensive, but it's it, you know, it works well. We have public transport, we have a bicycle lane. So the city provides and the city has collectively organized for a number of needs to be met. We have a voice in society through direct democracy in Switzerland, we feel safe, et cetera, et cetera. Of course with some nuances. But you can organize for those needs to be met. You cannot organize for people to be happy. You can have a society that provides all these different services, what are called universal basic services. You could have services that cover education, public transport, et cetera, and you still can have miserable people. So I like this idea of protected needs cuz it helps us, I think, differentiate from what we call human needs in the book and what others call human needs. And this idea of being happy or not being satisfied or not with your life.
(07:06):
No, absolutely. And and it gets kind of more to the, the root idea of those needs. Cuz I think it's very easy to be superficial and think that I need certain material things when in fact all those things are are nice and perhaps enjoyable. They aren't required for as we talk about a good life. Yeah,
(07:24):
That's the key distinction really, Michael, you've nailed it. For me, it really is distinguishing the means from the end, I think is the easiest way to say it. I mean a car, food healthcare education, all these things are satisfiers the needs are things like feeling protected having a voice in society, participating, et cetera.
(07:46):
Yeah. And so, yeah, you touched on that briefly. The satisfiers versus the needs. Explain that a bit more. What what are exactly, what are satisfiers?
(07:54):
Satisfiers are all the things that we can put in place to meet fundamental needs. So a satisfier can be a bike lane, or it can be a park. And the illustration that I like to give is getting to work in Geneva implies meeting several needs, the need for subsistence the need to participate in society, et cetera. And in Geneva, you can do that on a bicycle. Most likely you can't do that in Los Angeles and you might need a car to do that in Los Angeles. So it draws attention to the fact that if needs are absolute, the satisfiers themselves are completely context dependent and therefore they emanate from political decisions around what kind of society you wanna live in. And either you design a city for cars or you design it for public transportation or pedestrian and bike passageways. And those therefore are political and collective decisions.
(08:55):
Yeah, no, I think that really was clarifying for me because with those satisfiers, you're able to reach the needs in different ways, right? Because yeah, I think as soon as you say I want a certain lifestyle, how does that scale and how does that translate to people in different places and different times, right? My values might be different than someone else's value. So I think yeah, breaking it down to what are the needs and how do we satisfy them, I found very useful. Cause then, like you said, it can be very context-dependent.
(09:21):
Exactly. And I, I have another maybe layer to add to this idea of satisfies, which I tried to bring into this book as a sociologist. And it's this idea that consumption domains are made up of different, let's say, social material elements. I spoke about bike lanes earlier, but those are not the only things that allow us to practice bike riding in Geneva. You you also need certain rules as well as social norms and expectations around the bike versus the car. So it's these sort of social material configurations of satisfiers that I find really interesting to explore. And it also involves, so not only material things, social norms and rules, people's skills and competencies, but also different actors and power dynamics. So we can really complexify what and how we understand satisfies, but ultimately they are incredibly context-dependent and very different from these needs that are universal and absolute, let's say.
(10:19):
Yeah, no, absolutely. And, and I think that idea of the social norms is, is a really important one too, cuz like you said, you can't maybe force someone to be happy, nor can you force them to ride a bicycle. But I think if the majority of people are using public transportation or are biking, if you see a lot of people on the road biking, I feel like you're more likely to take a bike because it's the accepted thing to do and you want to fit in with society. Right?
(10:42):
Exactly. Yeah. We saw that during covid here in Geneva, more and more people were not taking public transport, which is not necessarily a good thing, but for concerns around hygiene, let's say at the very height of the pandemic in the first spring of 2020, and more and more people got on their bikes. And this really did create a normalization effect that I find quite interesting. And, and so values are not something that we hold or carry only in ourselves. For me, they reflect broader societal dynamics. They reflect culture. And so you can either have a car culture or a bike culture in a given city, and those things can change over time. Yeah. And can be planned for.
(11:21):
And then you touched briefly on happiness. Like how does happiness relate to the good life?
(11:27):
Well, I think we, we can't disregard happiness. It is important. It's just something that we cannot necessarily plan for. So if I'm meeting with public officials here in the city of Geneva and trying to propose a strategy for the good life or a new objective around the good life within planetary limits, I can't, myself cannot defend happiness as a goal because I know that it's, it's a goal that it's not something we can necessarily guarantee, let's say. But that being said, there's a wonderful article that came out recently in Consumption and Society in New Journal that I'm co-editing about bringing fun back to the study of sustainable consumption written by a colleague Rick Wel, and I think he's onto something because it's true that, you know, we do want to seek pleasure in the things that we do take shopping for an example, many people shop because it is a form of leisure in the Philippines, there's a term for shopping, it's called it, there's a verb for shopping called to go malling.
(12:30):
And people go malling because they want to meet with others, they want to share a meal, they want to experience air-conditioned air for free , which is particular to that context. But I think we cannot completely disregard these more subjective sentiments. And what I find interesting perhaps is ways of combining the tour, analyzing how the two can be complimentary. So to give you an example, we just did a bunch of workshops here in Geneva on this question of the good life where people worked with lists of human needs and tried to distinguish satisfies from needs. And we found that these moments of coming together in a community to share and to deliberate and arrive at a consensus really did have strong, positive emotions associated with them. And so that to me links to the need to participate in society very clearly, but also says something about the more emotive aspects that serve as a sort of gel, let's say, towards collective action or even towards sustaining collective action over a long term.
(13:30):
Yeah, no, and that idea of, of coming together and deciding on on what is important also comes up a lot in the book to write. It's not about necessarily individual choices, but it's more about the collective, right?
(13:41):
Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, we, we, we all I believe are very firm advocates of the idea of not over-individualizing responsibility. In fact, Michael Maniates, one of our co-authors, has raised this issue and his own work over a number of years. And so ultimately how consumption corridors are designed and implemented must emanate from some kind of a collective process. It isn't about individuals making somehow heroic decisions based on their own resources and competencies to reduce their consumption, which is great in and of itself, but it's about thinking or opening our imaginary towards more collective ways of thinking about change that can involve you know, that can, can happen at different scales from communities coming together and discussing consumption corridors to, you know, hopefully at one stage consumption corridors at maybe a more national or regional level. Who knows? It still remains a very exploratory concept. It's one that I've had the pleasure of already sharing and discussing both with colleagues in academia, but also people working in environmental organizations and the public sector. But it's true, I think there's, there's something here that resonates and yeah, there, there's some ideas on how they can be implemented, whether by sector like housing or food, et cetera, or whether it should be by resource. But that remains very much open to discussion.
(15:12):
No, absolutely. And, and yeah, I think kind of going back to those satisfiers, if you are determining within your community, within your nation even what you need to satisfy those needs, then I think that's a very interesting conversation. One other thing that comes to mind, you know, generally when you're talking about the good life is the better life and how, like, you know, obviously through human history, especially in modern history, we've made lots of advances in healthcare and, and wealth and our lives are generally better, right? We have a higher quality of life generally. So the better life is, you know, striving to have a better life. How does that get in the way of the good life?
(15:49):
Mm-Hmm. , very good question because it really brings us to the issue of social justice. So in a world of unlimited resources, the good life of one person may not necessarily prohibit others from living a good life. But if we agree that we are here on planet earth and that we are only open to thermal energy from the sun that we are on this finite planet, then questions do are posed around how the good life for people living today might be hindering others from being able to do the same. So maybe to also answer the question less directly, there have been studies that have shown that beyond a certain level of material and energy consumption, we do not continue to be happier and happier and more satisfied. So this means that we all need to get to a certain point where basic needs are met, let's say.
(16:47):
But beyond a certain point that increase in material and energy consumption does not increase necessarily our happiness and well-being. Now, can we satisfy needs with more and more stuff? Certainly we can. The problem is we do not have enough resources to do so, and we are infringing upon the ability of future generations to live a good life. And that's therefore why the corridor's concept comes in. It is that upper limit that's necessary. And I should say everyone's comfortable with lower limits, right? Everyone's, everyone agrees that you need a minimum amount of education, a minimum amount of access to energy. It is that upper limit that sets the inequality ratio, I guess, over those that are consuming enough to get by and those who are consuming potentially excessively. So a corridor is about bringing everyone within a space that allows future generations and all people living on the planet today to live a good life. And the wider the corridor, I guess the more freedom you have and the more inequalities within that corridor. But ultimately freedom remains because there is it is not one absolute level of consumption. It's a range of consumption between the minimum and the maximum.
(18:04):
Yeah, absolutely. And I think it kind of goes back to that idea of happiness too, right? Because if you're trying to, you know, that better life is usually a material life, is it actually gonna make you happier? Perhaps not. Perhaps having those other needs satisfied in, in different, more sustainable ways actually leads to a better life. You said one word, which I which I definitely wanna talk about is the word freedom. That comes up in the book. And, and I think, yeah, from, again, from a North American context, freedom is a very interesting thing because I feel like as soon as you're putting limits on people's potential, let's say maybe economic potential wealth status material goods, perhaps they say, well, you're limiting my freedoms. So how does that fit into the equation?
(18:44):
I mean, we could have a whole podcast just on this word, freedom and I mean, let me pick away at it a little bit because you know, for example, we have this idea that we are sovereign consumers and we've been told that we have the freedom to choose. And often this is what you will hear, you will hear that it is demand that is orienting supply, or you will hear that it is because of consumer choice that we must have strawberries available in January in the Northern Hemisphere, for example. But in fact, our choice to buy something is conditioned upon so many choices that happened before we even arrived in that supermarket in the systems of provision, production, distribution, et cetera. So I think we've been kind of brainwashed into thinking that we as consumers always have free choices. And this is one of the myths that we talk about in the book as a myth that we need to overcome because this idea of freedom somehow in some instances is actually putting more responsibility on us to make the best choices when sustainability decisions should have been made upstream to make sure that strawberries or on other unsustainable goods are not available on our supermarket shelves to begin with.
(19:57):
Now, of course, that again, should take place with some kind of a participatory process, so we're not being, you know, things are not being imposed on us, certainly. But I think that that idea of already freedom of choice is one that we can certainly pick away at. And then in general, freedom can be used in, in the word freedom can be used in two ways. Freedom from harm, freedom from living under dire conditions and freedom to do things, engage in society, et cetera. And I think the consumption corridors concept is trying to ensure that everybody has freedom from harm that is really central to our proposition. And that's why we need corridors and these upper and lower limits without the basic means for living a good life, we cannot be free. We cannot make any choices. So to, so to us it is sort of a another way of understanding freedom, freedom from harm that should also be central to our discussions.
(21:00):
Yeah, absolutely. And, and one thing that stood out for me in reading about freedom in consumption corridors was that idea of, again, back to the collective, right? As a North American, I, I kind of have that innate idea that we should have freedoms and freedoms are a good thing. But yeah, actually for me, the pandemic really changed my idea on that in that, you know, we, how do our freedoms affect other people? And how does, you know, limiting our, our quote-unquote freedoms actually serve others. Right. I know in the book there's a few examples of even speed limits and things like that. Like we already set these limits on ourselves in order to protect our society and make a better society, right?
(21:38):
Right, exactly. Limits are all around us, we don't like the word, but they certainly exist, as you say, limits on the number of years of education we might have in a given context. Speed limits, credit limits, it's harder to find upper and lower limits together in Switzerland, there are upper and lower limits for public housing by numbers of persons. This is something we worked on with Sylvia Lore. What is a minimum amount of floor space you might need for given family? And what is the maximum amount of floor space in a context where access to land is very much constrainted? So again, this whole idea of, you know, a a an upper limit being imposed by some kind of biophysical constraints. But if I can, I would love to address the point you made earlier about the good life and how people that are maybe living a good life want ever more, let's say, and are not necessarily ready to give up what might be seen as an escalation and aspirations towards living even better than our parents did, giving more to our children that what we ourselves received, et cetera.
(22:43):
And this is where the de-growth argument, I think is, is a rather good one. I mean, this idea of unlimited growth is really incompatible with an idea of a finite planet. So that's sort of fundamental. But perhaps just here, because I'm sitting in Geneva and rather an affluent part of the world, I did do some research with people that live a good life, that have multiple cars secondary homes, et cetera, and that are quite affluent. And actually, when you talk to them about their good life, you realize that the standards that they adhere to around comfort, convenience, et cetera, et cetera, are a form of social lock-in. And it is, it is sometimes difficult for them to keep up with all of those standards and at the same time, difficult for them to step out of those societal expectations. And there I think we need to be having more discussions around what the good good life really is coming back to this question of fundamental needs and how they're met. And in another study we started looking at people that live self-proclaimed sufficiency lifestyles that tried to reduce their square footage that have given up flying, for example. And you will not find people that are miserable in any way. They really are also living a good life with much less I don't wanna glorify having less or nothing, cuz of course there are many people living in situations of precarity that need to consume more. But in general, this idea of enoughness, I think is, is a, at least a societal dialogue that's really worth having.
(24:19):
Yeah, you make a good point about just kind of the shifting goalpost, if you will. If you have a certain size house, suddenly your neighbours have a bigger house, so you need a bigger house, and then it just keeps going on and on. So yeah, that's a good interesting point about that social lock-in that you're always comparing yourself to other people and yeah, and I appreciate that you've also studied people who are living with sufficiency and, and enough and how they can live happily with less mm-hmm.
(24:43):
, but somehow those people actually collectively or within their communities and families decided to engage in sufficiency. Your covid example is a really good one. We did a study also here in Switzer with other colleagues on how everyday life was disrupted during the pandemic. And we found that many people were engaging in new forms of experimentation that you could sort of categorize the sufficiency. So they were of course not traveling as much anymore maybe experimenting with new forms of mobility, like I said, biking and things like this, or making baking bread, what have you. But we did see that once those constraints around social distancing were lifted, at least in Geneva and other routines and rhythms of life took over once more, for example, commuting to, to the place of work rather than working at home. Many of those practices disappear. Not all of them, but to me, this evokes the idea that when a constraint is imposed, if that constraint is then lifted, there is kind of a return to normal routines and habits are really difficult to change even when people experiment with different ways of doing, which needs me to think that somehow some form of collective reflexivity is also needed.
(26:01):
Again, this is why I think this conversation between needs and satisfiers is so essential to really have us reflect on what is the good life for us and how do we get there. So we do need regulation. It would be great if consumption quarters were just imposed on societies, but at the same time, I think societies co collectively have a responsibility to be having these discussions and reflections.
(26:24):
Yeah, I think that's a challenging one with imposing regulations, right? So yeah, the, the pandemic is a perfect example. Obviously, people adjusted their lifestyle because they were forced to. And I think you could do that on an environmental case too. You could force people to, like a carbon tax for instance, is a very good example that you are trying to change people's behavior by pricing fossil fuels. But yeah, I, what I like about de-growth generally and, and even consumption corridors, is that idea of choice and that as a society, as a community, like you are choosing to make these decisions and you're choosing to change your lifestyle. So do you feel like when it's actually a collective choice, that you have a better chance of making, a long-lasting change?
(27:05):
That is the premise, I guess, or the hope behind many participatory approaches or participatory action research where here I've been doing one I've been, I've been doing some experimentation with communities for a European project called Dialogues where we're experimenting with something called Citizen Action Labs. And I've been able to gather with my coworkers some it's like a, a core of maybe 15, 20 citizens, but over time some 120 citizens have participated. The aim is for these citizens to propose climate action plans in their communities. And we find that people really are able to take time and reflect on very complex issues such as climate change and come up with solutions. So the hope I guess, is that the solutions that emanate from citizen forums might be more innovative or different from what public officials might have come up with on their own.
(28:04):
The fact that citizens propose them means that they might be more inclined to supporting them and being part of them and pushing them forward. And then, as I said before, it is also this realization that I, that I had myself, that even participating in those forums was a way of fulfilling a need in and of itself, that people really did like to feel like they had a voice in society, et cetera. Now, there are many pitfalls of participatory methods. For example, if none of the results from dialogues end up getting picked up or, you know, if people feel that they've been instrumentalized, then of course that has negative we can talk about a negative rebound effect, let's say. But if, if citizens do have a way to have their voices heard or are themselves able to implement some of the measures that they propose, then I think we are here experimenting with new forms of democracy.
(29:00):
And even in a country like Switzerland where we have a, we do have a direct democracy, such citizen forms are necessary. Not to mention the fact that many people have equal anxiety now and are looking for ways to make significant contributions in their communities. And maybe even just a footnote to say that the citizen collectives that I'm working with right now with this dialogues project all emerged during the pandemic, which I find really interesting. It at a time when, you know, we were more and more aware of global challenges, people needed to meet at a community level and find ways to make sense of their life at a local level. Many thinkers suggested that the pandemic was just a dress rehearsal for the climate crisis. And yeah, why not see it that way as a, as a new opportunity for us to be thinking of how to handle global issues at a collective local level.
(29:56):
Yeah. And and do you think, I guess, do you have an idea of maybe why that would've come up during the pandemic? Is it that people had just more time or they were just, you know, maybe reconsidering their priorities? Do you have any idea about why those sorts of conversations would've started happening at this time?
(30:11):
I would love to know whether it was the case elsewhere as well. If anyone listening to this wants to drop me a line and share their experience. But I think somehow we are at a point where we at the same time realize that many global issues are directly linked to human activity. So climate change and the resulting term of the Anthropocene, right? Which is this idea that humans are a geological force. That's not nothing, you know, over 200 scientists around the world are generating climate reports that are stating, you know, that human activities are responsible for climate change. Same thing for the pandemic in a way. I mean, that virus did not walk itself over to Europe on its own. I mean, it, it was carried over by people flying et cetera, et cetera. So we, we at the same time know that major global challenges are linked to human activity, but we're be, we've been told since, at least after the Second World War, through the whole neoliberal era, that we individually should be somehow responsible for change and that we will somehow recycle our way out of impending environmental disasters.
(31:22):
So I think given that tension, the fact that people want to meet collectively and think about ways to improve their direct communities really makes a lot of sense, or at least I'm an optimist. So I'm hoping that that is that is a trend that we might be seeing in different contexts.
(31:40):
Oh, absolutely. And, and I know, like you said earlier with your groups that you did research on, you know, maybe not every single idea might be put forward as a policy, but I wonder, like, are, were there kind of common themes that came up that resonated with a larger section of the group?
(31:56):
Yes. Yeah. And I should say also that the in dialogues, the idea was to propose initiatives that citizens could implement themselves so they could work for collectively. So there were broader structural changes that are needed. I'll give you one example there, there was an unexpected idea or initiative which actually is substantiated by the literature and deep growth and people, so people came up with the idea that they needed to be able to reduce their work time or have more flexible work arrangements to be able to invest more time in their communities. And maybe the covid experience had contributed to this. So what do you do? In that case? It's much bigger than what a citizen collective can organize for because it has to do with workplace regulations or you know, maybe even national standards or what have you, . But they, they recognize that there were some things they could do to allow for more people to work near their homes.
(32:56):
For example, one of the idea was to go to lo local coffee shops and see if the coffee shops would agree to allow people to work from those coffee shops during the day in their communities. And could there be some kind of sign put up that makes it more welcoming for people. I mean, this is something that's probably very standard in New York City or where in some major urban environments, but here we're talking about more peri-urban areas and some people were already reflecting on how they could approach the neighbourhood restaurant and see whether they would be amenable to having people stay the afternoon to work from there. So that's just one example of a change that could be seen as more of a macro change or more structural change, but that people felt they could carry as well or carry forward.
(33:40):
Yeah, and I feel like with that example, what stands out for me is it's, it's a very creative kind of idea that maybe you wouldn't have thought of if you were just a policymaker thinking about a city. And it's very specific to your community, right? So I think that's a very powerful thing. And, and yeah, I guess, and you also touched briefly on again, the pandemic, which we can't help but talk about. I know in the Consumption Corridor's book, it briefly says that like, social change is often messy and untidy and it's not always structured right. And I feel like the pandemic kind of made that very salient that, you know, sometimes we're just forced into a situation and that shifts our thinking and shifts our ideas. Cuz you briefly talked about changing that work-life balance and working from home more. I think before the pandemic people would've said, no, you have to come to the office, obviously, but then after the pandemic people reconsider that, they go, of course, yeah, we did that for so long and yeah, why can't you work from home for a few days a week because that gives you more time with your kids or whatnot.
(34:34):
So I feel like those shifts also change our perception and, and change the norms, right?
(34:40):
Yeah, absolutely. This whole question of what is normal and how do we normalize things or how do we make certain things questionable is really important. In sociology, there's an idea that you can contest normative ways of doing, but there is always a potential that this might backfire. So for example, you could contest the wearing of fur coats, but then people might reinforce that orthodoxy and say, you know, we've been wearing wearing fur coats since the beginning of time and et cetera. Same, same thing with four-by-four cars. Same thing with flying. So it's always delicate, I think to contest, to give an assumption. And what I've done with some of my projects is I've encouraged households, I've worked with households to experiment with change. So rather than saying or being in the discourse of, no, you shouldn't do this, no, you shouldn't do that.
(35:34):
Rather asking people, you know, why don't you, you try to reduce your indoor temperature to 18 degrees in the winter over four months, it's a challenge. It's something that other households are doing across Europe. This is something we did for the Energized project and get people to experiment with what a new microclimate might feel like, whether or not they attain, they attain that 18-degree goal is irrelevant. It's more about making comfort, something that we can discuss and sort of taking people behind the curtain to question their own normative assumptions around comfort. Why am I wearing a T-shirt all year round indoors, even in the winter? And isn't that something we need to maybe think about or reflect on? So I really like these ideas of or approaches that try to experiment with change. Of course, I've always done this more at a micro level working with households and we need to scale up and we need to reach a lot more people. And there, I think, well, your podcast has a role to play and maybe also working with media partners and trying to challenge or or raise awareness around these forms of experimentation with broader audiences.
(36:40):
And, and it seems like in the conversations I've been having, you know, obviously, you need to have changes at the policy level, the political level, things like that. But I do see a lot of value in making change in your community and even within your household. I think that the more people that can do that, I like yeah, why, why wouldn't you? Right?
(36:59):
Yeah, it's about like, I don't wanna use, I don't know if contamination is the, is the right word cuz it's a bit negative, but how can we contaminate other people with with new ideas and new ways of doing and how can we showcase that and make it visible? And certainly social media must have a role to play there as well.
(37:18):
Yeah, and I think that idea of, like you mentioned contesting things, I feel like that's a very tricky thing, right? Because as soon as, cuz everyone, like we've talked about values a bit and happiness and, and needs, you know, everyone has a different viewpoint on that. And if, and if you are trying to fight against that, that does seem like an uphill battle. So yeah, I appreciate that idea of kind of getting them to think differently about their own consumption or their lifestyle habits and, and how can you change that? I'm curious with that study, I know it was on a very micro scale, but did the participants adopt some of those changes? Like were they kind of making a, a change in their behaviour after the study?
(37:51):
Yes. So we did, what we did with Energize was we, this was before what is now being called the energy crisis here in Europe. So right now in Europe, there is a lot of interest or concern around energy provisioning. Not only because of the war in Ukraine and the fact that Europe is being cut off from Russian gas, but also because of very hot climates. Meaning that, for example, in Switzerland, hydro power is quite, is lower than it's been in the past. So this energize study was done before all of that, when energy was really not top of mind for many households. And we asked people or invited people to reduce their indoor temperatures in winter and to reduce by half their laundry cycles. And in both instances we really tried to tackle the normative dimension of heating and cleanliness. So why do you wash things this way and how, you know, why did you decide to put this in the dirty clothes and all that?
(38:48):
And really getting at what we saw as for some people, a very mechanical approach to laundry. You wear something once you put it to wash. Others had much more of a sensorial approach to laundry. But in all cases, whether related to laundry or to indoor temperatures, the interventions that we did really were kind of a rupture in their routines and habits and had them in a rather, let's say friendly environment where we were not judging or moralizing their consumption anyway. We had them experiment with new ways of doing. And we found that after the challenge, some three to six months later, people had managed to keep their energy usage down around heating, which is quite significant. Laundry is less significant, but we wanted to touch on hygiene and cleanliness, something really personal and interesting to tackle in, in terms of social norms. Yeah, so quite a good result and, and some media around a household in Geneva, actually a before and after piece in the Daily News which I think really did also contribute to showing, as I said, demonstrating that people can find new ways of doing things without, without necessarily compromising their, their comfort actually.
(40:02):
Well, absolutely, and I'm glad that you had those, those results from your study. That's a good example of, you know, laundry and, and your energy, your thermostat in your house. How I feel like those aren't really things that you necessarily talk about with your friends and colleagues and neighbours of how do you do your laundry. You just kind of assume that everyone does it the same way. So I think it's interesting that you're tackling those things that maybe we don't necessarily think of as things to talk about and discuss within our groups.
(40:25):
Definitely. I mean Elizabeth Chau and Alan Ward have a paper called Inconspicuous Consumption. It really is about that. It's about how, you know, we wake up in the morning, we turn on our lights, we make breakfast, we do a number of things that use energy, but we're not doing them to communicate our status or social position. And that's why you, you need another way of approaching consumption of thinking about consumption as theory of habits, a theory of routines. So looking at really social practices and how they're held together by normative understandings of what is the good life, people's skills and competencies around how to do things, but also material arrangements that we can't lose sight of and that can lock us into certain ways of consumption over others. I always say actually that yeah, we, we, we think about bike lanes versus highways as a very clear way of thinking of the distinction between more sustainable and unsustainable forms of mobility. But oftentimes this normative dimension is just as hard and rigid and difficult to change, but maybe invisible to the eye. This idea of social lock-in that I evoked earlier, really trying to challenge normative assumptions around the good life, which I think consumption corridors does in the sense that we really try to contribute a new language, a new discourse around human needs, social justice and freedom within limits to bring forward a new way of talking about what is the good life.
(41:53):
Yeah, absolutely. I think there's some really, really great ideas that I very much resonated with. This has been a very interesting conversation. Of course, one thing that comes to mind is what people can do. We've kind of touched on some of these ideas, but you know, this show is about empowering citizens to take action on the climate crisis. So when it comes to consumption corridors and the good life, what can people do to have an impact?
(42:11):
Well, I think we absolutely can start discussions in our communities around the difference between needs and satisfiers and desires. We have a cartoon that we've developed here in Geneva. It's available in English. It's about the energy transition and what the future might look like in Geneva in 30 years from now. And we use those cartoons about the future to have people reflect today on whether needs will be satisfied or not and how to plan for that. So people can download those cartoons if they wanna use them, they're very welcome to. But in general, I think having a discussion at the community level and then of course pushing things up to the state level, rethinking our priorities and our goals as a society. And there Kate Raw worth's Donuts economic model, I think is a very promising one in terms of thinking of what, so social foundations must be met without bypassing planetary boundaries. Very relevant and related to the consumption corridors concept.
(43:14):
No, that's very helpful. Thank you so much for that, Marlyne. And overall, this has been a very enjoyable conversation, so thanks so much for coming on the show.
(43:20):
Thank you so much for, for having me as well, Michael.
(43:25):
Well, that was my chat with Marlyne. I think the biggest theme that stood out for me was just rethinking our lives within our communities, within our households, our workplaces. If we're doing that, if we're actually thinking about what do we need versus what do we want and how do we satisfy needs, I think starting those conversations is gonna lead to some positive change. Well, that's all for me. I'm Michael Bartz. Here's a feeling a little less in over our heads when it comes to saving the planet. We'll see you again soon. In Over My Head was produced and hosted by Michael Bartz in partnership with Environment Lethbridge. Original Music by Gabriel Thaine. If you would like to get in touch, email info@inovermyheadpodcast.com
(44:04):
I'm trying to save the planet oh will someone please save me?