itshalfempty

Something that has been on my mind for a while is how to be a responsible consumer. Every dollar spent on a product or service represents more than just a transaction - it’s also an implicit endorsement of a business, industry, and values they represent. In today’s day and age, where businesses, billionaires, investment groups, and corporate interest groups wield considerable power over our laws, media, and culture, spending money can (in small part) help sustain systems and agendas I don’t personally support.

While I consider myself to be fairly intentional about what I spend money on (to a degree some might describe as frugality), my evaluation criteria to-date has generally focused only on cost and quality. I’ve felt conflicted when considering more expensive options that might support better businesses, but I generally just default to the less expensive options from trusted brands.

So with that in mind, I’ve decided to formalize my evaluation criteria a bit. Cost and quality are still important, but alone they are not sufficient. By being more intentional about how I behave as a consumer I’m aiming to:

• reduce how much waste I generate, and the negative impact I have on the world
• become more self-reliant, and help build more independence in local and regional communities
• help foster more local and regional independent businesses

My criteria

To guide my decisions going forward, I’ve come up with a few broad principles I’ll be trying to keep in mind. These aren’t hard rules, but they’ll help me weigh my options:

• Reduce, reuse, recycle
• Prefer companies with positive societal impact
• Prefer local
• Avoid products with high environmental impact

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

The three R’s is something that’s been drilled into the American public for some time. The EPA’s website has a lot of great content (at least at the time of writing this post) about how to minimize environmental impact as consumers. While recycling gets a lot of attention in general, importantly, the EPA notes that:

reduction and reuse are the most effective ways you can save natural resources, protect the environment and save money

I think I’m generally pretty good at minimizing how much I purchase - but ultimately I think I still have room for improvement.

Rent and Borrow

There are definitely things I’ve purchased that I’ve used only a few times. Items that, in hindsight, would have been better left on the store shelf. Some I could have skipped entirely and been just fine. Others I could have rented or borrowed instead. For example, I own a fairly cheap circular saw I’ve used only a few times. Renting one from my local Home Depot would have saved me money, allowed me to use a better quality tool, and I wouldn’t have another thing to stick on a shelf in my basement.

“Buy Once, Cry Once”

Sometimes I might want to dip my toe into something new without wanting to make a big commitment. I sometimes end up buying things that are relatively inexpensive to evaluate something new. If I decide to commit more, I end up replacing those items pretty quickly, even though they may be perfectly suitable. Perhaps most recently was when I got into backpacking. I bought a lot of gear during the pandemic that was a mix of no-name stuff and some pretty entry-level gear. Some of what I bought was perfectly serviceable, but was really best suited for car camping. Some of what I bought was pretty worthless. I started replacing my entire backpacking loadout after my first trip. This approach for getting into a hobby is pretty inefficient.

I’d have been better off just buying what I ended up with out of the gate. Or if I wasn’t quite so certain about what to get or my commitment levels, I could have rented or borrowed gear initially instead.

Buy things for life

It’s easy to reduce how much I buy if what I buy doesn’t ever need to be replaced. Or at least don’t need to be replaced very often. In general, what I’d ideally look for are items that are:

1. High-quality
2. Durable
3. Repairable / serviceable

Unfortunately a lot of products these days are made to be disposed of rather quickly. Often something integral to the item fails or wears out, and it’s either just not practical to repair because of the way the product is constructed, or it’s just not much more expensive to replace the thing whole sale. Claims of planned obsolescence have been thrown around every now and then, but I think it’s more likely that products are usually designed in a way to be as cheap as possible to manufacture. While that may make them slightly less expensive to purchase, it does often end up being wasteful and more expensive in the longer term.

I bought a Framework laptop last year specifically because it aims to be user serviceable. Even though electronics generally have relatively short useful lives, Framework is committed to providing schematics and parts so that components can be repaired, replaced, or upgraded without replacing the entire machine. By keeping machines working for the life of even two typical laptops, that adds up to lot of reduced plastic and e-waste. The company is relatively new, so it remains to be seen how much the vision plays out, but I’m a big fan of the concept.

Buy used

Buying used has never been my default. I have preferred to shop for completely new items because the buying experience is so much simpler, and because I know that the goods will be in perfect condition. While some items may not make sense to buy used, lots of things are perfectly fine to buy secondhand. High quality things that are made to last a lifetime, or that are easily repairable, are ideal candidates to buy used.

Thinking back over the last year or so, there are actually quite a few things that would not have been too hard to buy used and would have suited me just fine. These are just a few examples:

• My DSLR, which is even sold refurbished by the manufacturer
• My handheld ham radio, readily available on eBay if nowhere else
• A bicycle, which are really plentiful used and also very inexpensive

Prefer companies with positive societal impact

Conglomerates and mega corporations own a disproportionately large amount of the products we buy. While that isn’t inherently problematic, these companies are typically driven by the goal of maximizing profit and delivering growth for shareholders. Their priorities are often shaped by investor expectations rather than long-term societal or environmental well-being.

Large corporations frequently advertise eco-friendly initiatives, like reducing plastic packaging, lowering carbon emissions, or promoting fair labor practices, but often these efforts feel like the bare minimum. They are just enough to avoid consumer backlash or stay competitive, but not ambitious enough to create meaningful change.

Consumers (and some investors) have been demanding that companies do better, but there are no shortage of examples of companies either dropping their stated goals, moving the goal posts, or just patting themselves on the back for making problems they created slightly less worse.

Mistakes can happen, and working at scale definitely creates challenges that are very difficult to solve. But I prefer companies that are more seriously investing their efforts into initiatives that benefit their employees, their local communities, and the environment. While I have no problem with companies making a profit, I’d rather support businesses that aren’t principally focused on maximizing their value to investors. In general, that means avoiding public companies or venture-backed companies pursuing rapid growth.

Some of the things I’ll be looking for in companies include:

• Public benefit corporations
• Certified B Corp
• employee-owned companies or employee co-ops

While writing this blog post, I was surprised to find out just how many companies I already buy from fit these criteria. Bob’s Red Mill, King Arthur Flour, Patagonia, Herman Miller, Publix, and Warby Parker are all companies I’ve purchased products from in the past, and I’ll definitely continue to support them.

Prefer local

There are a ton of reasons why buying local is beneficial. While it’s great in a way that we can buy pretty much whatever we want, during any time of the year, in any part of the country - the downside is that often that means we are supporting people who live in completely different parts of the world. That isn’t a bad thing necessarily, but it can be detrimental to our local communities if nearly everything we buy is sourced from places far away.

It’s impossible these days to source everything locally, but these are some of the specific reasons I’ll be making a more concerted effort to lean more on local businesses.

Keeping money in the local community

It’s a bit of a no-brainer that supporting local businesses, artists, manufacturers, farmers, etc., is beneficial for the local community. Not only does it directly support local jobs, but local businesses are more likely to spend that money locally. In this 2013 study, it was determined that “for every $1,000,000 in sales, independent retail stores generate $450,000 in local economic activity, compared to just $170,000 for chains.” That’s a pretty powerful feedback loop for generating more local jobs and tax revenue.

Accountability & transparency

Shopping local (and smaller) makes it significantly easier to understand how a company works, where they source their products or materials, and how they treat their employees. You are significantly more likely to be able to have conversations directly with the farmer, owner, artist, etc., to learn about the company and their process. Smaller businesses typically have much closer relationships with their partners and suppliers, who are often themselves small and local businesses, giving everyone a much greater understanding of the (typically more simple) supply chain.

Furthermore, local businesses are much more embedded in their own communities. Their actions and practices have a direct impact on where they live and their customers, which is a strong incentive to operate in ways that benefit the community rather than harm it.

Preserve character & culture

It’s occurred to me that when traveling I purposefully seek out local everything, but I don’t do the same in my day-to-day life. Looking back, it seems a little strange that I probably own more unique and interesting things from other parts of the world than the Atlanta area. It’s not like there’s nothing interesting here!

I’d like what I eat, where I shop, and things I own to reflect where I live a bit more. I think that will both help me feel more of a sense of place, but it will also support and sustain local crafts people and businesses.

Avoid products with high environmental impact

Environmental impact isn’t something I’ve thought much about in the past when choosing a product or deciding what businesses to support. But really, it should be. Producing things at all, much less at scale, will always have an impact on our environment. Our goal as a society should be to minimize the harm we do, especially needlessly. Carbon emissions, deforestation, groundwater contamination, and more can all be mitigated, either somewhat or greatly, by changing consumer behavior, regulations, industry best practices, and more. It will take a combination of all of those to make significant and lasting change, but I hope that by making better choices myself that I can help move the needle just a little.

That said, as a consumer, it can be a tough world to navigate. It’s hard to really untangle the true impact our decisions have - in part because supply chains are so vast and murky. My goal won’t be perfection, but to make the best decisions I reasonably can.

In many cases the decisions are pretty easy to make. Reduce the amount of single-use plastics used, including in packaging. Reduce the amount of beef (or meat overall) I eat. Avoid fast fashion and plastics in clothing. The list goes on and on.

In other cases though the answer is not so straightforward. Either the environmental impact is hard to know because it happens far away, or because it’s a question of choosing the least bad option. Sometimes it might be best to lean on certifications, audits, or reports that speak to the environmental impact of a product or company. I don’t have a set of trusted resources to refer to yet, and I’m pretty dubious about organizations backed by industry to give themselves a pat on the back. I’ve got a lot to learn here!

Conclusion

Overall I think this will be a big shift for me. Cost and convenience will still be factors I consider, though my aim is to challenge myself to think a bit more about my decisions as a consumer and to explore alternatives. The changes I make to my habits won’t happen overnight, and I certainly won’t adhere to these principles 100% of the time. But small, intentional choices can make a big difference, especially when multiplied across a community. If you’ve been on a similar journey, or have resources or stories to share, I’d love to hear them.