To spend or not to spend

BY AMARA BAKSHI Multimedia Editor

Looking through countless websites trying to decide what jeans to buy, I already have a favorite pair and I know I don’t need it, but I want another one. Might as well buy it in a different color.

Product customers today want what they want, when, and how fast they can get it. As the world becomes increasingly more digital, the culture of online shopping with a click of a button has become normalized.

Consumerism is the economic and social system that encourages the purchase of goods and services. It starts to become excessive when we start to buy products that aren’t needed. This creates more pollution and materials, and unnecessary items become normal to have.

“Overconsumption is the harvesting of natural resources or materials in a way that is detrimental to the environment. It is also when individuals or societies are just constantly purchasing new materials, or have a ‘throwaway economy’ instead of reusing and fixing things. It’s just constant purchasing,” human biology and biology teacher Camille Erskine said.

Our growing population and unsustainable consumption of goods like clothes and singleuse products have led to an acceleration in climate change. The mass production of these materials and products in landfills and oceans will be the self-destruction of our planet while we continue to generate more garbage. As a human population, we are consuming and buying more than enough objects. Packages upon packages pollute ecosystems that we cannot replenish.

Sequoia’s science programs, specifically IB Environmental Systems and Studies (ESS) and biology are incorporating topics like climate change and over consumption in their curriculum. Teaching about consumerism allows for younger generations to learn more about and hopefully change habits relating to pollution.

“At the end of the year, we’re able to weave in together all of the different things we’ve been learning in biology to allow students to work towards solving an issue related to climate change. There are many different issues that come with climate change,” Erskine said. “One of the driving factors is fossil fuel combustion, which is often used in order to create all these products that we are purchasing. So yes, we do talk about consumption as one of the issues and students try to find ways to reduce the need for it.”

Sustainability consists of maintaining or supporting a process continually over time, in this case, for future generations which is helpful both economically and environmentally. Sustainable products also replenish themselves and cannot be depleted. Changing the status quo around sustainable products can have positive effects, such as advertisements influencing more people to show for reusable or organic products.

Since the media is a driving force in society, with over half of the global population using social platforms, advertising reusable products can play a great role in how people perceive sustainability and their willingness to learn about how they can help our planet. Direct marketing strategies can influence consumers easily, and the advertising itself needs to change in order for there to be a modification in buyer’s mindset.

“We need to crack down on what false information is, how we reach consumers and, what the message is about sustainability to make it clear,” IB Business teacher David Weyant said. “We have to change the mentality of their choices.”

Even so, trusting advertisements has its downsides, especially regarding greenwashing. Greenwashing is when a company tries to market itself as environmentally friendly without actually trying to reduce their environmental impact. It is counterproductive in stopping climate change and over consumerism because none of the policies are actually being changed.

“Greenwashing is especially dangerous because you can feel morally better and like you’re making a change, when in actuality you are contributing to the same issue. So that really means that all of this responsibility gets put onto the consumer to research,” Erskine said.

As well as advertisements and greenwashing, social media influencers reach the most amount of people through their content. According to the popular buy-andresell online website Shopify, “61 percent of consumers trust influencers, and Generation Z, people between the ages of 16 to 23, is the demographic most likely to respond to influencer marketing efforts.”

“Influencer culture is all about trying to achieve the same thing, and the easiest way to quickly achieve the same thing is to purchase similar materials. It’s a glorification of, ‘you really want to have this bag because it’s in season,’ All of those things are just constantly showing that if you just purchased this one more thing, your life will get that much better. We’re constantly selling the idea that consumption is a way to buy happiness and status,” Erskine said.

Another factor that adds to the over consumption of products and excessive waste are holidays. Holidays like Valentine’s Day and the Fourth of July have been commercialized nonstop, with deals in bulk and the countless options to buy, which causes consumers to impulsively purchase large quantities of materials.

“The [effects of holidays] can be huge. Especially because a lot of times production is quantity over quality. It’s part of the joy of Christmas to get gifts, but it’s also important to think about where you’re buying things. […] For example, wrapping paper is commonly mass produced for single-use,” junior and IB ESS student Josephine Ollmann said.

The existence of days like Black Friday–marking the beginning of the holiday shopping season– bring more opportunities to impulsively spend, and large companies are able to manipulate their audience to purchase more.

One problem that arises when people are trying to buy more sustainably is accessibility. Without people being able to afford the cost the environment,” Erskine said.

While it is easy to fall victim to American consumerism and the daunting consequences it has, mindful shopping can reduce impulsiveness and overindulging. Overall, suppliers have less pressure on them to make more environmentally sustainable products than buyers do for purchasing them. However, the most important factor in reducing over consumerism is self awareness. Before you go shopping, be conscious of what you’re buying and where it might end up, even though advertisers tell you otherwise.

“Be aware and focus on the reuse portion of reduce, reuse, recycle. Making sure that if you get a plastic takeout container that you just wash and reuse that for other materials, bring them into your teachers who can use them to store things, and really just making sure that you’re not you’re using the least amount of