Individual consumer action won’t save our environment. But it’s a start.

For every reusable straw enthusiast out there, there is a disillusioned skeptic. The bring-your-own movement and every other individual consumer action campaign has gained its fair share of supporters and haters. At the heart of this increasingly emotional debate lies one fundamental question that nobody, even within the environmentalist circle, can agree on: do individual actions matter?

This question is even more relevant today, with the recent release of the landmark UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. In short, (if you haven’t heard yet from the screaming climate scientists that are losing their minds over the inevitable catastrophe) we have “only a dozen years for global warming to be kept to a maximum of 1.5°C, beyond which even half a degree will significantly worsen the risks of drought, floods, extreme heat and poverty for hundreds of people.” Couple that with the knowledge that “[a]t the current level of commitments, the world is on course for a disastrous 3°C of warming”, and you’ll begin to see how gargantuan the problem is; and why (more importantly for our discussion) individual actions don’t seem to have much of a point.

Let’s ground this in Singapore for a better understanding. In 2015, a measly 15% of our total electricity consumption was determined by households. When it comes to water, it is projected that the domestic sector will only take up 30% of our total water demand in 2060. It’s not just that only a small percentage of consumption is determined by homes, it’s also that the scale of the problem is so big. Singapore uses 2.2 million straws a day. We also use 2.2 million plastic bags from supermarkets (alone!) a day.

Evidently, individual consumer action isn’t going to save the world. But we still care.

We say it’s a start. Let’s think about how change happens. Say you bring your own tumbler to get your daily coffee fix. Who do you encounter along the way? The cashier. The customers behind you in the queue. The barista making your drink. Optimistically, even the staff pouring and serving you your drink. If it’s novel enough - which it still is, even now - they will talk about it. Maybe they’ll even talk to their friends about it. Sometimes, especially in Singapore, the staff will have to check with their supervisor if they can even allow people to use their own tumblers (for hygiene reasons). Which means, the supervisor is also involved. Bonus points for the weird looks you get when you’re feeling wild enough to bring your own straw too.

Point is, that’s a lot of people. Only for one day, one person and one activity. Imagine the ripple and broadening effect you could bring about.

Still skeptical? Maybe you think we’re being idealistic. Then let’s talk about facts. The Rogers Adoption Curve, otherwise known as the Social Diffusion Curve, is a theory that describes how new innovations and ideas are accepted and adopted by groups and cultures, developed by Joe M. Bohlen, George M. Beal and Everett M. Rogers, at Iowa State University, in 1957. Originally, it was used to describe agriculture and home economics, but later was applied to new ideas and technologies, and now even influences social change theory.

It is based on the idea that people only really begin to adopt something new once 13.5% of people adopt it too, i.e. your friends, your neighbours, people you interact with on a daily basis. Once we hit that 13.5%, the change becomes exponential, and the entire society will do it too. We can all be a part of that.

Here at Conscious Living Collective, we want to be a part of the push towards that 13.5%. Our twin goals are to enable individuals to effect tangible change through campus-wide events and promote a better understanding of the ways in which environmental issues pervade our everyday lives.

CLC is just a small part of a larger network of passionate environmental groups. Every day, we are encouraged by the myriad of ground-up action pushing the proverbial needle. We saw this in the 70 individuals who showed up to listen to MP Louis Ng speak in parliament about legislative action to curb single-use plastic waste. We saw this in a 17-year-old student working with Gong Cha to make BYOB and biodegradable straws a tangible reality. The course of history is being shaped by people, not just policies and faceless corporations, but regular people like you and me.

Right now, we are well-positioned as individuals to set a tone for the kind of conservation we want to see. In the immortal words of Naomi Klein, we need to stop “acting on canvases that are unnecessarily small”. We need to be daring and imaginative enough to envision a bigger canvas for ourselves, one that extends into legal and political reform while also staying rooted in ground-up action. It’s daunting to navigate all of these undertakings at once but if there’s anything to take away from this post: individual action does not mean you stand alone as one individual. It means you’re joining scores of people already standing for the same thing, excited and eager to welcome you.

---

What exactly do we do as a group?

CLC is working closely with Yale-NUS to bring the first inaugural thrift store to the college community in mid-November this year. Thrift stores are at the frontier of perpetuating a circular clothing economy and reframing individual perspectives on buying secondhand. You can find out more information about the thrift store on our Instagram and Facebook pages. Looking further into the academic year, we are also planning a maker’s bazaar and a panel featuring crucial figures in the local scene.

Beyond event-planning, our group also serves as a mini-classroom, where members bring something new to a collective repository of information through weekly seminar-style presentations about a chosen topic. Through our blog posts, we hope to expand our community by bringing you into the conversation. Our goal for this platform is to create a home for sustainability news and inspiring perspectives that constantly reposition the individual at the centre of the green revolution. As the blog progresses, we will be inviting environmental change makers to share their stories and offer refreshing viewpoints. Every month, we will put our minds together to bring you tips and advice for reducing your carbon footprint and making viable adjustments to consumer patterns. Finally, we will get personal with our own struggles and meditations on environmentalism in Singapore and beyond.