Back in 2015, the Greenleaf founders met at university and discovered they shared an interest in sustainability, in particular, it’s environmental pillar. As the pair learned more about it, they were left pondering a disparity: why is there a growing trend for conservationism and yet global emission continued to rise? Ideas were discussed and eventually, with the resources of a university library, the internet and the city of Leeds to interview, the pair set out to find some definitive answers.
Early findings were ambiguous, on the surface UK emissions have been in decline since 1990 and the UK only contributes less than 1% of world emissions, a positive sign you’d think. On the other hand, the wider picture shows that world CO2 emissions had nearly doubled since 1990 before COVID intervened and were pushing 37,000 mtCO2 in 2018. If UK emissions have dropped as reported while world emissions have continued to grow, why is the UK not being labelled as a sustainability leader? Alternatively, if the UK emission figures are misrepresentative, why have the “awakened” millennial audience and the parents of that audience not made the necessary changes knowing climate change is becoming more urgent?
The simplified answer is habit, which for decades and decades have been honed to practicing a consumerism culture. For centuries, economics has taught the world’s wealthiest and most powerful the rational right decision is the one that bears the most personal financial gain and position improvement before all else. Now modern generations have been brought up in a globalised and convenience-based world, where most mistaken easy access to food, drink and education as a right rather than a privilege – and a jet-setting holiday every year as a norm rather than an indulgence.
In regards to the UK figures, the country is not an unsung hero of sustainability. The inaccuracy is hidden by international trade and international movement not being included in carbon budgets and estimates to date. The UK imports about 4% of all global imports, which equates to around £491,752,500,000 according to the ITC. When you take into consideration the activity that is driven by the half-a-trillion pounds worth of demand for imported products, the UK’s consumption counts for far more than the 1% of global emissions it’s formally credited for.
To gauge the impact of UK demand, take the environmental impact of building a smartphone like the one you’re likely reading this on. It takes a monumental supply chain to provide the latest device, charger and instructions neatly wrapped in a box. Even before considering the electronics there is a lot to consider: the fuel to cut the tree down for the box, the removal of a sequestrating organism and transporting it to the sawmill and logging it. Then there is the power to the machinery to process that into paper, to cut that to shape and to assemble it into a box. Additionally, there is the manufacturing of the chemicals that make the ink printed on the box, the combining of those chemicals to create the ink and then power to the machine that prints that on the box.
For the manufacture of the phone and charger, start with the mining of the raw components: lithium for the battery, gold for the circuitry, petroleum for the epoxy circuit board base, metal for the case and so on. Then consider the impact that comes from refining those from raw materials into a usable state, the manufacturing of the usable materials into the individual components and then the assembly of those components into the product.
A major factor not mentioned yet is where all these processes are taking place and the environmental cost of transportation between stages of the supply chain. For example, the gold for circuitry may well be mined in Africa, the lithium in Chile, the petroleum for the epoxy in the middle east, etc, etc. The raw materials may be transported to a different location to be processed, another location to manufacture them into the individual elements and then to a further location where all the components are compiled into a phone and the phone into its box. Finally, it’s one last trip to the UK or wherever the phone is sold and poof, you have a phone- as simple as that!
That’s not where the impact stops either, some products – like combustion engine cars – create impact from their consumption, others – like plastic packaged products – create impact from their disposal. Returning to the original example, impact comes from repeated consumption. The machine manufactured will comfortably last 10 years if looked after, however, for one reason or another it will be obsolete in half that time. Whether it’s the consumer trying to keep up with the trends or the businesses of silicon valley trying to keep their pockets full, the phone will be replaced and all this impact is repeated as the entire production process happens all over again.
Take a minute, look away from the device you’re reading this on… Now look at your device again with fresh eyes and see not your phone, but the monumental environmental effect it’s taken to put the little 50cm3 of tech in your hand. Now consider every other smartphone you’ve owned in your life.
Now look around you with the same eyes and see the environmental effect of the laptop, potentially the tablet, the pens, the paper, the desk, the chairs, the photos, the frames. Keep looking, see the impact from the neatly plastic wrapped food, the drink you drink – every packet, loaf, can or carton.
Go on looking, the fridge, the toaster, the kettle, every item of clothing in the wardrobe and every item of clothing you’ve ever owned, every bit of skincare or makeup ever used or owned, every tube of toothpaste, every bottle of shampoo, every car and every ounce of fuel you’ve put in those.
Now, that’s just you, your environmental impact. Times that by 70 million for the UK and about 1.27 billion for the current economically developed population – then double that (at least) to allow for the past few generations. It’s not so hard to see how the environment has been decimated by the amount we consume and how we come to consume it. Throw in a Brits love for a holiday abroad and it’s plain to see that the UK population are responsible for a lot, lot more than 1% of world emissions. The easier thing to miss is that in practice this actually boils down to “I’m just nipping to get a meal deal”, “Do you fancy Mallorca this year love?” or “I’m just gonna have a look on Amazon, I need a new…”
The current mode of consumption for the economically developed world and the lifestyles that have come to be the social norm are the key root issue that’s caused the climate crisis.
Two thirds of world emissions may come from commercial sources, but that is always driven ultimately by the person buying the product at the end of the chain. The current mode of consumerism being responsible for climate change isn’t a new notion though and is largely acknowledged, leading us back to where we started – why is there growth for environmentalism and not a corresponding reduction in consumption?
To discover what’s blocking the uptake of eco-friendly practices, the founding pair began examining the behaviours at a more day-to-day level. Greenleaf’s founding pair identified 4 key factors and they are (tap to find out more):
- The price barrier
- Human tendency to bias in decision making
- The inconvenience barrier
- Marketing – from the deliberately deceptive to the classical challenges.
Greenleaf was first conceptualised to specifically tackle these four issues and catalyse a move to a circular, green economy. The Greenleaf App was devised to accurately track an individual’s footprint without input and be a platform to aid rapid dissemination of greentech and practices. The services for businesses and the internal tools used in evaluations were developed in line with IPCC and GHG protocol publications, to provide a development service and to keep the platform free from greenwashing. The other services offered to businesses today developed from there, to provide a full turnkey solution for businesses wanting to go green.
Solutions aside, the surge for eco-friendly living COVID has brought may lead one to believe that we’re on track but unfortunately, that’s not the case. The study into behaviours behind modern consumption and if we’re failing to uptake of eco-friendly practices is still not a pleasant one and the outlook is still bleak for environmental sustainability. As recently as the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) called a code red for humanity with the climate crisis and most sources suggest we’re failing to make the appropriate changes in time to avoid a catastrophic 2 degree rise in world surface temperature.
There’s overwhelming opinion that habits and cultures are too ingrained in the living population to make the changes necessary and that we’ve more or less sealed our fate. So can we make the changes in time or are we already doomed by the negligence of our ancestors, our elders and now us? Searching for an answer to that question is closely entwined with a common question the universal thinkers among us are often left pondering: is humanity at its pinnacle now, approaching decline, or in early adolescence, just beginning to blossom?
Examining that universal question more closely, most people weathered by life wish they could go back with all they know now; most people in the transition to maturity will recognise when they’re bordering on mistake, but not understand the consequences enough to stop; and most people who have not begun the journey to maturity take unfathomable risk (for who have experienced the dangers) without blinking. Most people. Humanity’s position with the environment feels as if we’re at that age where we’ve begun to understand but are too unburdened by the experience of consequences to act. That is, if humanity is to be metaphorically considered as “most people”.
If you look through the course of history, you’ll find a collection of individuals who seem to learn quickly enough to not need the sting of outcome to develop, becoming advanced in maturity and their chosen fields. It is those individuals who inspire or find solutions to problems that are unfathomable to most before them – the likes of Einstein, King, Wollstonecraft, Darwin, Turing and so on. It is their work that populates the textbooks of schools and has shaped the successes of humanity to date. So, if our race has been defined by these intuitive thinkers then does that make humanity the metaphorical special individual, standing out through its ability to think and learn? If so, then humanity may well be in its adolescence and in the sustainability conundrum, about to solve it’s latest uncrackable enigma.
Generations of universal wonders have come and gone without ever getting answers but in this instance debating is nearly over. The next two decades will define whether humanity is an aging sceptic, too old and set in it’s way to do anything with its knowledge accrued by experience; or whether humanity is the young prodigy, on the brink of its latest breakthrough and destined to achieve far more great things.
