Yannick
Sustainability hypes and trends
Sustainability is fashionable. Green and brown letters, leaves, globes, plants , checkmarks, quality stamps, you see those elements everywhere, in supermarkets, restaurants. Everyone tries to send the message to the consumer “we are sustainable/ ecological”, even Mc Donald’s is “green”.
Besides the fact that you could ask yourself if these companies with leaves and plants in their logos are really as ecological as they claim, we should think about the future of sustainability in commerce.
I am sure many companies do their best to be ecological and sustainable, but nowadays it mixes with companies who only look sustainable. People want to buy products that look like they are no harm to the environment but you can’t really tell anymore because all labels and packages are green and have leaves etc.
What concerns me the most is that this might be just an hype, that in five years sustainability will not be fashionable anymore and that companies will be using the cheapest production ways again instead of the most responsible way. This could be comparable with the light products hype of some years ago. All products became suddenly light and “healthy”. At that time the consumer apparently preferred light products, so companies accommodated this. Now, years later, light products are not so fashionable, and you don’t see them as much anymore. This is not a problem of course, but I see this as a problem when the same happens to the sustainability trend. Because it is vital that this trend keeps going, otherwise we will lose our planet.