Will Consumers Save The World? The Framing of Political Consumerism

An active ethically conscious consumer has been acclaimed as the new hero and hope for an ethically improved capitalism. Through consumers’ “voting” at the checkout, corporations are supposed to be held accountable for their conduct. In the literature on political consumerism, this has mainly been approached as political participation and governance. In this article, we do a critical review of this literature. We do so by questioning the existence of what we call a “generic active consumer model.” At the core of this position, there is a belief that the active consumer is a universal entity, available across nations and time. Instead we call for an approach that takes accord of the ways consumers and consumer roles are framed in interactive processes in markets, governance structures, and everyday life. Consumers in different countries assess their responsibilities and their powers as consumers differently due to different institutionalizations within distinctive contexts. We also must take into account how the inertia of ordinary consumption and the moral complexities of everyday life restrict the adoption of an active consumerist role. Hence, the debate on political consumerism should make for a more realistic notion of ethical consumer-sovereignty and its role in improving the workings of capitalism. In our view, these findings have severe implications for understanding both theories of political consumption and the dynamics of political consumption per se.     

Ethical Tools to Support Systematic Public Deliberations about the Ethical Aspects of Agricultural Biotechnologies

This special issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics presents so-called ethical tools that are developed to support systematic public deliberations about the ethical aspects of agricultural biotechnologies. This paper firstly clarifies the intended connotations of the term “ethical tools” and argues that such tools can support liberal democracies to cope with the issues that are raised by the application of genetic modification and other modern biotechnologies in agriculture and food production. The paper secondly characterizes the societal discussion on agricultural biotechnology and defends the thesis that normative perspectives fuel this discussion, so one cannot come to grips with this discussion if one neglects these perspectives. The paper thirdly agrues that no such thing exists as “one” societal debate in which these issues should be discussed. There are several interwined debates, and different actors participate in different discourses. Some practical instruments are necessary in order to include the right issues in these debates. These instruments will be coined as “ethical tools,” since they are practical instruments that can be used (tools) in order to support debates and deliberative structures for a systematic engagement with ethical issues (hence, ethical tools). Finally, the paper clarifies the ethics of these ethical tools and presents the tools as discussed in the remainder of this special issue: 1) tools to include ethical issues in public consulation and involvement; 2) tools to support systematic reflection upon ethical issues in decision-making; and 3) tools to support explicit communication about values in the food chain.     

Exponential Growth, Animal Welfare, Environmental and Food Safety Impact: The Case of China’s Livestock Production

Developmental states are criticized for rapid “industrialization without enlightenment.” In the last 30 years, China’s breathtaking growth has been achieved at a high environmental and food safety cost. This article, utilizing a recent survey of China’s livestock industry, illustrates the initiating role of China’s developmental state in the exponential expansion of the country’s livestock production. The enthusiastic response of the livestock industry to the many state policy incentives has made China the world’s biggest animal farming nation. Shortage of meat and dairy supply is history. Yet, the Chinese government is facing new challenges of no less a threat to political stability. Production intensification has created a welfare crisis impacting the world’s biggest number of farm animals. The resulting food safety incidents are affecting consumer confidence and health. Untreated waste contributes to the nation’s environmental degradation. Developmental states may have a proud record of growth in the initial stage of industrialization. Their prospects for sustained development have long been questioned. China has come to an important juncture to march towards a sustained development.     

Stories and maps, images and archives: multimethod approach to the political ecology of native property rights and natural resource management in Sabah, Malaysia

The study of human-environmental relations is complex and by nature draws on theories and practices from multiple disciplines. There is no single research strategy or universal set of methods to which researchers must adhere. Particularly for scholars interested in a political ecology approach to understanding human-environmental relationships, very little has been written examining the details of “how to” design a project, develop appropriate methods, produce data, and, finally, integrate multiple forms of data into an analysis. A great deal of attention has been paid, appropriately, to the theoretical foundations of political ecology, and numerous scholarly articles and books have been published recently. But beyond Andrew Vayda’s “progressive contextualization” and Piers Blaikie and Harold Brookfield’s “chains of explanation,” remarkably little is written that provides a research model to follow, modify, and expand. Perhaps one of the reasons for this gap in scholarship is that, as expected in interdisciplinary research, researchers use a variety of methods that are suitable (and perhaps unique) to the questions they are asking. To start a conversation on the methods available for researchers interested in adopting a political ecology perspective to human-environmental interactions, I use my own research project as a case study. This research is by no means flawless or inclusive of all possible methods, but by using the details of this particular research process as a case study I hope to provide insights into field research that will be valuable for future scholarship.     

Ethical Rooms for Maneuver and Their Prospects Vis-à-vis the Current Ethical Food Policies in Europe

In this paper I want to show that consumer concerns can be implemented in food chains by organizing ethical discussions of conflicting values that include them as participators. First, it is argued that there are several types of consumer concerns about food and agriculture that are multi-interpretable and often contradict each other or are at least difficult to reconcile without considerable loss. Second, these consumer concerns are inherently dynamic because they respond to difficult and complex societal and technological situations and developments. For example, because of the rising concern with global warming, carbon dioxide absorption of crops is now attracting public attention, which means that new requirements are being proposed for the environmentally friendly production of crops. Third, there are different types of consumers, and their choices between conflicting values differ accordingly. Consumers use different weighing models and various types of information in making their food choices. Changing food chains more in accordance with consumer concerns should at least take into account the multi-interpretable, dynamic, and pluralist features of consumer concerns, for example, in traceability schemes. In discussing usual approaches such as codes, stakeholder analysis, and assurance schemes, I conclude that these traditional approaches can be helpful. However, in cases of dynamic, pluralistic, and uncertain developments, maintaining some pre-existing evaluating scheme or some clear cut normative hierarchy, such as codes or assurance schemes, can be disastrous in undermining new ethical desirable initiatives. Instead of considering ethical standards and targets as fixed, which is done with codes and schemes, it is more fruitful to emphasize the structure of the processes in which ethical weighing of relevant consumer concerns get shaped. The concept of “Ethical Room for Maneuver” (ERM) is constructed to specify the ethical desirable conditions under which identification and weighing of paramount values and their dilemmas can be processed. The main aims of the ERM are making room in all the links of the food chain for regulating and implementing the relevant consumer concerns by (1) balancing and negotiating, (2) supporting information systems that are relevant and communicative for various consumer groups and (3) organizing consumer involvement in the links of the food chain. The social and political context of agriculture and food production, particularly in Europe, gives ample opportunity for implementing several types of Ethical Rooms for Maneuver. Finally, I discuss several types of Ethical Rooms for Manoeuvre in the food chains that can be communicated by means of specific traceability schemes to less involved stakeholders with the potential consequence that the stakeholders will be motivated to be more involved.     

Selective Patronage and Social Justice: Local Food Consumer Campaigns in Historical Context

In the early 2000s, the development of local food systems in advanced industrial countries has expanded beyond creation and support of farmers’ markets and community supported agriculture farms and projects to include targeted Buy Local Food campaigns. Non-governmental groups in many U.S. places and regions have launched such campaigns with the intent of motivating and directing consumers toward more local food purchasing in general. This article examines the current manifestations and possibilities for social justice concerns in Buy Local Food campaigns, by considering them within the more general category of “selective patronage“ campaigns. Historical campaign examples, such as Buy Union, Buy American, and Buy Black campaigns, offer instructive comparisons to contemporary consumer campaigns promoting local food. Through examining the construction of threats, intended beneficiaries, products to be avoided, and those to be preferentially selected, the paper demonstrates how selective patronage campaigns have emphasized social justice needs and concerns for designated groups in ways that have been potentially exclusionary of other disadvantaged groups and thus undermining of social justice more broadly. As a contemporary instance of “selective patronage,“ Buy Local Food campaigns exhibit similar contradictory impulses, which are intensified by the conceptual and practical pitfalls in designating “local.“ The article concludes by considering how the challenges and prospects for commitments to social justice in local food consumer campaigns reinforce the importance of emerging initiatives centered on domestic fair trade.     

A Pluralist–Expressivist Critique of the Pet Trade

Elizabeth Anderson’s “pluralist–expressivist” value theory, an alternative to the understanding of value and rationality underlying the “rational actor” model of human behavior, provides rich resources for addressing questions of environmental and animal ethics. It is particularly well-suited to help us think about the ethics of commodification, as I demonstrate in this critique of the pet trade. I argue that Anderson’s approach identifies the proper grounds for criticizing the commodification of animals, and directs our attention to the importance of maintaining social practices and institutions that respect the social meanings of animals. Her theory alone, however, does not adequately address the role of the state in this project. Drawing on social contract theory to fill this gap, I conclude that the state’s role in regulating the pet trade should be limited to ensuring the welfare of animals in the stream of commerce, not prohibiting their mass marketing altogether.     

Consensus Conferences – A Case Study: Publiforum in Switzerland with Special Respect to the Role of Lay Persons and Ethics

This paper focuses on experiences from a case study dealing with the Swiss type of a consensus conference called “PubliForum” concerning “Genetic Technology and Nutrition” (1999). Societal and ethical aspects of genetically modified food meanwhile can be seen as prototypes of topics depending on the involvement of the public through a participatory process. The important role of the lay perspective in this field seems to be accepted in practice. Nevertheless, there is still some theoretical controversy about the necessity and democratic legitimacy of participatory processes in general, and especially about those dealing with technological or environmental problems (sustainable development) concerning society. From an ethical point of view, a lot of heterogeneous problems concerning contents and procedures of public participation can be pointed out, not only on the theoretical level but also in practice, e.g., concerning the communication process between laypersons and experts. The intention of our paper is to give hints and to clarify criteria that support the communication process leading to a dialog of autonomous citizens and which especially consider ethical aspects in the field. One important result is that there must be an orientation for all members of a consensus conference having clear rules and knowing their different roles that support transparency, credibility, and fairness of the whole procedure and a “good product”: a substantial final document or citizens’ report. This paper presents results of the project Ethical Bio-TA Tools as funded by the European Commission, DG Research, under FP5, Quality of Life Programme.     

The Idea of “Ethical Accounting” for a Livestock Farm

This paper presents the idea of a decision-support system for a livestock farm, called “ethical accounting”, to be used as an extension of traditional cost accounting. “Ethical accounting” seeks to make available to the farmer information about how his decisions affect the interests of farm animals, consumers and future generations. Furthermore, “ethical accounting” involves value-based planning. Thus, the farmer should base his choice of production plan on reflections as to his fundamental objectives, and he should make his final decision only after having seriously considered the various consequences for the affected parties. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Farmers Engaged in Deliberative Practices; An Ethnographic Exploration of the Mosaic of Concerns in Livestock Agriculture

A plethora of ethical issues in livestock agriculture has emerged to public attention in recent decades, of which environmental and animal welfare concerns are but two, albeit prominent, themes. For livestock agriculture to be considered sustainable, somehow these interconnected themes need to be addressed. Ethical debate on these issues has been extensive, but mostly started from and focused on single issues. The views of farmers in these debates have been largely absent, or merely figured as interests, instead of being considered morally worthwhile themselves. In this paper the relevance for ethical debates of the ways farmers discuss and engage with moral concerns is explored. The variety of norms that figure in contemporary farming practices is sketched in its multifarious complexity, illustrated by ethnographic fieldwork, and systematized in terms of “orders of worth.” Reviewing the practical arguments and commitments of farmers within this framework reveals that farming practices are subject to mixed motives, in which an amalgam of types of concerns play a role. Recognition of the peculiarly entangled nature of the ethics of farming practices could counter the tendency in policy making, technological innovation, and ethical thought to compartmentalize our moral landscape. Understanding farming practice as the integration of a mosaic of concerns in the light of a variety of moral experiences would foster public appreciation of positions of farmers in debates on improving the sustainability and societal acceptability of livestock agriculture.     

Ethics in the Societal Debate on Genetically Modified Organisms: A (Re)Quest for Sense and Sensibility

Via a historical reconstruction, this paper primarily demonstrates how the societal debate on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) gradually extended in terms of actors involved and concerns reflected. It is argued that the implementation of recombinant DNA technology out of the laboratory and into civil society entailed a “complex of concerns.” In this complex, distinctions between environmental, agricultural, socio-economic, and ethical issues proved to be blurred. This fueled the confusion between the wider debate on genetic modification and the risk assessment of transgenic crops in the European Union. In this paper, the lasting skeptical and/or ambivalent attitude of Europeans towards agro-food biotechnology is interpreted as signaling an ongoing social request – and even a quest – for an evaluation of biotechnology with Sense and Sensibility. In this (re)quest, a broader-than-scientific dimension is sought for that allows addressing the GMO debate in a more “sensible” way, whilst making “sense” of the different stances taken in it. Here, the restyling of the European regulatory frame on transgenic agro-food products and of science communication models are discussed and taken to be indicative of the (re)quest to move from a merely scientific evaluation and risk-based policy towards a socially more robust evaluation that takes the “non-scientific” concerns at stake in the GMO debate seriously.     

Just and Sustainable? Examining the Rhetoric and Potential Realities of UK Food Security

The dominant discourse in 20th century UK food and agricultural policies of a liberal, free trade agenda was modified at the turn of the 21st to embrace ecological sustainability and “food security.” The latter term has a long international history; the relationship between issues of technical production and equality of distributional access are also much debated. The paper examines shifts in UK policy discourse in the context of international research, policy, and initiatives to promote food security, and highlights the implications for social justice in and through the food system.     

Norton and Passmore on Valuing Nature

Norton argues on pragmatic “Deweyan” grounds that we should cease to ask scientists for value neutral definitions of “sustainability,” developed independently of moral and social values, to guide our environmental policy making debates. “Sustainability,” like human “health,” is a normative concept from the start—one that cannot be meaningfully developed by scientists or economists without input by all the stake holders affected. While I endorse Norton’s approach, I question his apparent presumption that concern for sustainability for the future is at odds with and ought to trump concern for enhancement in the present of public opportunities to access the goods nature represents. I argue that the two are not separable in practice. I argue for Passmore’s position that unless we take care to enhance equitable access to the good and services nature represents in the present, we cannot succeed in promoting sustainability for future generations.     

An environmental assessment of food supply chains: a case study on dessert apples

The contemporary food system provides consumers with convenience, extensive choice, and the year-round availability of fresh produce. In this paper these achievements are recognized within the context of the associated environmental impacts. While many analyses have considered the energy and material efficiency of various options for food production and packaging, very few studies have investigated the environmental impacts of the transport components of food supply chains. This is surprising, given that the global sourcing of food produce, centralized distribution systems, and shopping by car have become prevalent in recent decades and have contributed to an increase in the distance between producer and consumer or “food miles.” In a case study the transport energy consumption is calculated for all possible ways in which dessert apples can be supplied to the UK consumer. The aim is to assess the environmental performance of the predominant fresh produce supply chains and to investigate claims that localized systems are more environmentally efficient. The main criteria used to compare the environmental efficiency in alternative food supply chains are the transport-related fossil-fuel energy consumption and associated carbon dioxide emissions. Analysis of the empirical data shows that transportation is now responsible for a considerable fraction of the total energy consumption in the life cycle of fresh apples, and in most cases exceeds the energy consumed in commercial apple cultivation. By developing local production and marketing systems for fresh products, transport demand can be reduced and many of the environmental impacts associated with existing supply chains can be avoided. The results of the study are then discussed in relation to the wider issues of transport policy, international trade, food security, and product-related environmental information for consumers.     

The Introduction of the Precautionary Principle in Danish Environmental Policy: The Case of Plant Growth Retardants

In this paper, we investigate the Precautionary Principle (PP) in action. Precaution is a fairly new concept in environmental policy. It emerged back in the 1960s but did not consolidate until the 1980s, as it formed part of the major changes taking place in environmental policies at that time. The PP is examined in three contexts. Firstly, we look at the meaning of the concept and how it is disseminated through the media and public discourses to the political arenas of Denmark. Then we examine how the idea is adopted to the political level. Thirdly, we look briefly at the first Danish translation of the principle into a practical context, which includes translations into concrete scientific practices. It is concluded that if the PP shall be more than a simple “idea” or a frequently used “term,” emphasis must be put on the transformation of the concept into concrete practices, like e.g., the alternative testing regimes that we show in the case of plant growth-retarding pesticides presented in this paper.     

Parenting and Intergenerational Justice: Why Collective Obligations Towards Future Generations Take Second Place to Individual Responsibility

Theories of intergenerational obligations usually take the shape of theories of distributive (social) justice. The complexities involved in intergenerational obligations force theorists to simplify. In this article I unpack two popular simplifications: the inevitability of future generations, and the Hardinesque assumption that future individuals are a burden on society but a benefit to parents. The first assumption obscures the fact that future generations consist of individuals whose existence can be a matter of voluntary choice, implying that there are individuals who are responsible and accountable for that choice and for its consequences. The second assumption ignores the fact that the benefits and burdens of future individuals are complex, and different for different “beneficiaries” or “victims.” Introducing individual responsibility for procreation as a (crucially) relevant variable, and allowing a more sophisticated understanding of the impact of new individuals, generates grounds to prioritize the individual’s interest in responsibility for (creating and equipping) future individuals over any collective intergenerational obligation. I illustrate this by introducing a series of moral duties that take precedence over, and perhaps even void, possible collective redistributive duties.     

Reflections in a Stock Pond: Are Anthropogenically Derived Freshwater Ecosystems Natural, Artificial, or Something Else?

“A skyscraper is as natural as a bird’s nest” –Alan Watts For millennia, people have altered freshwater ecosystems directly through water development and indirectly by global change and surrounding land-use activities. In these altered ecosystems, human impacts can be subtle and are sometimes overlooked by the people who manage them. This article provides two case studies near Boulder, Colorado that demonstrate how perceptions regarding these ecosystems affect their management. These examples are typical of lakes and streams along the Front Range of Colorado that are simultaneously natural and social in origin. Although natural, many of the region’s freshwater ecosystems are affected by ongoing ecologic, hydrologic, chemical, and geomorphic modifications produced by human activity. People and nature are both active participants in the production of these freshwater ecosystems. The concept of “hybridity,” borrowed from geographers and social scientists, is useful for describing landscapes of natural and social origin. Hybrid freshwater ecosystems are features of the humanized landscape and are derived from deliberate cultural activities, nonhuman physical and biological processes, and incidental anthropogenic disturbance. Our perceptions of “natural” freshwater ecosystems and what definitions we use to describe them influences our view of hybrid systems and, in turn, affects management decisions regarding them. This work stresses the importance of understanding the underlying societal forces and cultural values responsible for the creation of hybrid freshwater ecosystems as a central step in their conservation and management.     

Addressing global responsibility for conservation through cross-cultural collaboration: <Emphasis Type="Italic">Kodama Forest,a forest of tree spirits</Emphasis>

A commitment to conservation of a place is based on the sense of place expressed by its “conceptual community”, including those who are not its residents in the geographical sense, but who nonetheless identify with it for various reasons. With the global nature of environmental issues being clearly recognized, such communities form a “terrain of consciousness” (Berg and Dasmann 1978), extending responsibility for conservation across cultures, time and space. Although the social mobility and diversity brought about by today’s technology often work against the development of a sense of place, they also allow the formation of such conceptual communities, who can highlight local distinctiveness while at the same time positioning local issues in a global context, so generating a sense of global responsibility. In the case of Tasmania, Australia, recent international interest in its ecologically and culturally significant places, such as Recherche Bay and the Styx Valley, has intensified the focus on forest issues, building on Tasmania’s already well-recognized history of environmentalism. It is important that these issues be recognized in Japan in particular, where a rising awareness about climate change and mass consumerism has alerted the public to the problem of deforestation; however the fact that Tasmania is one of the major sources of woodchips for paper production is not widely known. Awareness by the consumer, it is argued, is a foundation for forming a sense of global responsibility and it is necessary to form a conceptual community of those committed to the same issue. Cross-cultural collaboration is therefore necessary, and creativity can be an effective facilitating agent for this. This paper illustrates this point, through the example of the Kodama Forest, a forest of tree spirits, in North East Tasmania, that arose from such a collaboration between a group of Japanese students and a local community group. The collaboration also facilitated meaningful learning opportunities for the students, who chose to study in Tasmania because of its natural environment. The forest now provides a cultural heritage that also defines the evolution of this conceptual community through on-going collaboration. The importance of human connection at all levels, local, regional and global, in promoting environmental sustainability is addressed through the example of this forest.