Green Companies Need to Promote Satisfaction, Not Endless Desire

'You can't eat just one.' As a kid, I would think of this slogan whenever eating potato chips. I found it to be happy-go-lucky in its attitude towards our natural cravings. It seemed to exclaim, 'This is who we are; let's love ourselves!'

However, I now view it differently. Today, it reminds me of the way our culture always leaves us discontent, setting off a level of consumption destructive to the environment. Green companies should take this fact to heart by marketing goods and services that leave us wanting less. In doing so, they would improve our well-being, and also that of the planet.

If companies want to practice social responsibility, they should help people alleviate their desires. I’m not saying we should give up all enjoyment. Rather, I think we should eschew a value system that encourages people to relentlessly indulge their impulses. In terms of business, it’s fine for companies to make money allowing people to give in to certain kinds of immediate gratification, but they shouldn’t help people go overboard.  It’s one thing to sell cookies; it’s another to encourage customers to eat the entire sleeve in one sitting. We all love Oreos, but too many can give you a stomachache.

Not only does supporting consumer restraint and satisfaction improve people’s lives directly, it also helps the environment. It’s a simple fact that by consuming as much as we do now we go through the earth’s resources at a rate that will be impossible to sustain. It’s easy to rationale our habits with the justification that what we’re doing now will have no impact on us, and that future generations can adopt different lifestyles in order preserve the earth.

However, this overlooks the fact that sustainability will take an enormous undertaking over a long period of time, and if people don’t act now it might be too late for future generations, or put them in a predicament where they’ll have to forfeit almost any quality of life.

Comments

[Learn Web Design]

You've made an awesome point, and I hope we see this kind of evolved thinking in all forms of marketing very soon. Being an optimist, I believe the days are at hand where marketing campaigns move away from the instant gratification, "sluggard" resonance to the inspiration of higher thought and responsibility.

It's high time we (meaning Western society) grow up on a spiritual level and take responsibility for living from a center of inner peace. Your post speaks not only about Green marketing, but to a deeper level about how, as a species, we need to embrace the ideal that we are enough.

We ARE enough. Call it satisfaction, contentment, or whatever but I would LOVE to see advertising campaigns that promote this kind of emotional maturity instead of the brain-dead "guys don't take showers or cook breakfast" style of recent Hardees commercials.

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Thanks for sharing this article.