María is aware of caring for the environment and goes to the supermarket to buy with her own bags, uses her car as little as possible, uses public transport, recycles and buys high-efficiency appliances. She contributes as much as she can. Today she has returned from the supermarket with some remorse because it is February and she has bought grapes that are not in season in Spain and come from Peru. She prefers to consume local and seasonal products, but her daughter eats little fruit and with grapes she knows that she will not have a problem.
Are Mary’s remorse founded? In another article we already commented that local consumption is not always more favorable for the environment. Yes it is, in Spain, when it is both local consumption and seasonal products. The efficiency of the Spanish agricultural sector implies that the total greenhouse gas emissions and water consumption (carbon footprint and water footprint) linked to domestic production are lower than those of imported fruit and vegetables. Although this is not the case if the consumption is local, but of products out of season.
In short, in relation to the environment, María’s remorse is well founded. But this is not the end of the story.
The triple dimension of sustainability
Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is a necessity to fight climate change and its consequences. This decision to consume Peruvian grapes or replace them with Spanish and seasonal products not only affects the environment. It also has consequences in other areas of sustainability: economic and social. In other words, it can affect the generation of income and employment, both in our country and in deprived areas or in developing countries, and worsen objectives as praiseworthy and necessary as poverty reduction.
Sustainability means taking care of people and the planet. Sometimes there are synergies and it is possible to do both at the same time, while at other times there is a conflict of objectives.
The possibility that synergies and conflicts may appear highlights the need to carry out a joint analysis of all dimensions of sustainability: economic, social and environmental.
The conflict of goals
When does this conflict of goals occur? For example, when those local and seasonal consumption decisions in the rich regions of the planet, such as Spain, impact the environment and the social development of poor regions where our imports of agricultural or textile products come from.
One of our investigations has jointly evaluated the impact of fruit and vegetable consumption decisions on the carbon footprint, water footprint and employment.
For example, substituting the value of all Spanish fruit and vegetable imports for domestic production would mean a reduction in the carbon footprint and also in the water footprint, with the sole exception of vegetables out of season, where water needs are scarce. would increase globally by 13%.
This is a positive result of the substitution of imports for local and proximity consumption. However, in terms of employment, this local consumption decision would mean a global decrease in employment of almost 800 thousand jobs. In addition, these jobs would be concentrated above all in developing countries in Latin America and Africa.
In the program fashion victims (saved, La Sexta), Jordi Évole highlighted in 2016 the low wages and harsh working conditions in the textile sector in developing countries. Towards the end, the interviewer asked one of these workers what she would ask of consumers in rich countries. The answer was “that they buy a lot, because that way we will have work and a better salary.”
Need for a comprehensive global analysis
The solution for this worker is not to stop buying that product, because in that case she loses her job. The solution necessarily involves improving her salary and her working conditions. Normally, there are no simple solutions to complex problems and the economic, social and environmental sustainability of our planet is a complex problem produced by the actions of millions of citizens, hundreds of thousands of companies, thousands of regions and municipalities and a couple of hundred countries.
On the one hand, María’s responsible consumption needs to have truthful information that is as simple as possible. Currently, there are labels in this sense (fair trade, recycled, free of plastic, CO₂ emissions). But these labels often refer to only one dimension, and our research suggests that a more comprehensive label incorporating all dimensions of sustainability is needed. Thus, supermarkets could offer consumption baskets of fruits and vegetables in each sustainable season in the three spheres mentioned.
Furthermore, Maria’s liability is limited. Her decisions as a consumer and as a citizen can help guide the economy on the path of sustainable growth. But she needs the rest of the responsible agents to help her.
The action as consumers of all the Marias in the world will be diluted like a sugar cube in a liter of water if it is not accompanied by public policies and the actions of companies in the same direction. Actions such as the proposal for a directive on due diligence by the Parliament of the European Union in which companies must take responsibility for meeting objectives related to human rights and the carbon footprint throughout their entire global chain of production or the Human Development Index of the United Nations Development Program go in the right direction.
Source: Eluniverso
Paul is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment and general news. He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established herself as a respected voice in the industry.
