On the package of organic milk from Coop (Sweden) I can read
the plastic cap is made out of oil. For some reason they can’t use
biodegradeable plastic made from renewable sources. Instead they “support the
production of the same quantity of renewable plastic somewhere else”. In
addition they claim that they through this can reduce the use of fossil raw
materials. This is supposed to make me feel good.
In this way, the package of milk illuminates two common
phenomena in how modern businesses handle, or not, environmental challenges.
The first is the notion of “compensation”, i.e. that we can compensate an ill
by doing something good somewhere else. The prime example is of course climate
compensation or carbon offset, which it often is called. But there are other
examples such as habitat
banking whereby you pay someone to provide ecosystems or species which you
have destroyed. And now plastic compensation. There are many things to say
about the notion that you can compensate for destruction. It leads to
financialization and privatization of nature (read
this excellent article by Sian Sullivan) and it often means that poor
peoples’ environment will be used to compensate rich peoples lifestyle (e.g..
when you compensate your flight with tree planting in developing countries).
Instead, let me instead probe the other message of the milk
package: That you can “save” or “reduce use” of fossil fuels using renewable
plastics. In the case of my organic milk this is greenwashing in its purest
shape. Before Coop introduced the plastic cap, the package had no cap, but the
carton could easily be opened and closed. By introducing a cap of made out of
oil Coop clearly increases the use of fossil fuels. But they look at the situation differently.
They see that they use a fossil cap and by supporting the production of
renewable plastic for something else, say the plastic grocery bags, they reduce
the use of fossil fuels.
As a matter of fact this way of reasoning is widespread. The
US department of energy tells us that buying an electric car will
reduce pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. But will it? I will not take
up the discussion of how big the carbon footprint of an electric car is. There
are things to say, but overall the
carbon footprint of driving an electric car is in most cases considerably lower
than from a gasoline or diesel car. But even so, can one really claim that
you will reduce pollution and climate impact by buying a Tesla or a Nissan
Leaf? Well, if you had no car earlier you will undoubtedly increase emission
and pollution by buying and driving an electric car. If you have a combustion
engine car and sell it to someone
else that will drive it, total emissions will also go up compared to the
situation before, unless that person already had a car before, which will be
scrapped. It is only if your old car is demolished or replace another car that
is scrapped that one could, possibly (it also depends on how old your car is
and how much you drive), claim that emissions are reduced by you buying an
electric car. There is thus a difference between that you will reduce your emissions and that you will reduce emissions.
In addition, the use pattern of an electric car is not the
same as a combustion engine car. The marginal cost of driving an electric car
will in most countries be considerably lower than driving a combustion engine car.
In the case of Sweden the operational cost for driving a combustion engine car
is more than five times higher. A person with an electric car is therefore
likely to drive a lot more. It also means that the electric car will replace
long train rides for families as it is much cheaper. More car traffic means
more roads, more garages, more tires and more of everything linked to car
travel. It also means less bicycles, less busses and trains, all transport
means with much lower emissions than electric cars.
Even on a very basic level, the concept of “saving” or conserving
resources is transient or illusive. Some
years ago I visited pastoralists in Northern Uganda where I could observe
the construction and use of wood saving stoves. I asked a woman if she through
the use of the stove could spend less time collecting firewood every morning.
She responded, “Oh, I collect the same amount of wood as before, I just sell
the wood I don’t need”. This was ironic as the reason for the introduction of
wood-saving stoves was to save trees, not generating income.
If we look at land use for agriculture we can see that arable
land per capita went from 0.45 ha to 0.21 hectare from 1961 to 2016. Still food
consumption per capita increased from just above 2000 kcal to just below 3000
kcal in the same period. Isn’t this a prime example of how increased efficiency
results in considerable savings of a resource, in this case land? At first
sight perhaps, but when looking at it more closely it is apparent that the more
efficient use of land is coupled to a tremendous increase in the use of energy,
fertilizer and water as well as the loss of biodiversity, carbon in soils and
environmental, social and economic resilience.
In addition, the increased productivity of labor led to
lower prices and increased consumption of crops. Not only humans consume more
crops, but more crops are used for animal feed and biofuels. And consumers now
buy much more food than they need, resulting in increasing waistlines as well
as mountains of food waste. In the end, despite the enormous productivity gain
per hectare, more crop land is used today than 1961. This is caused by the
double growth: the economic growth and the growth of the global population.
My milk package, the electric cars, agriculture land use and
the wood saving stoves are all examples showing why overall reduction in
resources use or emissions (absolute decoupling) through substitution and
efficiency is a pipe dream in a growth economy. Those are all real world
examples, but one can also ascertain that from a purely theoretical standpoint
that total resource use is bound to increase in a growth economy. I
have explained this earlier but will have another try in a coming post.
P.s. I have posted little lately on this blog. I do spend a
lot more time interacting in the Swedish food and agriculture debate and it
simply leaves less time and energy for the global arena. In addition, my
partner, Ann-Helen, and I recently launched a book, Kornas
planet, and we have been quite busy with the launch of that book (I
hope that it will be published in English in the future). Thanks for reading me.
