With all that talk about what actually drives consumer choice and so on, I find that a lot of it is peer pressure (as someone pointed out in the seminar today) or as I would more broadly call it: the social norms.
I found the second required article for this weeks reading really touches base on some of the key issues linked to the pressure of social norms. "Often ethical consumers have other friends like them or have an environmentally friendly job. Thus lessening the impact of social barriers to green consumption [...] Even when consumers have overcome social stigma and knowledge deficiencies, it is still remarkably difficult to be a green consumer with any consistency. Whilst some forms of environmentally friendly practises are now fairly well established and workable - buying organic, recycling - to attempt to live a green lifestyle across different spaces and social contexts is almost impossible".
I find I am a very different consumer when I am studying at university and living with like-minded, environmentally friendly people as opposed to when I return home. I feel I need to make compromises at home because my family is not ready to make the same lifestyle changes; a big issue being for example eating vegetarian food. THis comes up especially during traditional family gathering festivities as you can well imagine. Another one (and I realise this may come as a shock even to some of you) is flushing the toilet down only after n2. But this has all to do with social norms that we have set, at a very young age you are told to flush the toilet ALL the time, it's seen as extremely inpolite not to do so and furthermore a sign that you are not being well educated. And so on and so forth.
As stated in the article, I feel limited "as [I] have to negotiate different values and social identities in different spaces". All this to say that for me, social norms are really the crux of the problem and we need to find a way to change them.
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