The Road Away from the Sustainability Roadblock

In March of 2021, Jessica F Green, in an academic paper, Does Carbon Pricing Reduce Emissions: A Review of Ex Post Analysis finds that “the overall evidence indicates that carbon pricing has a limited impact on (reducing) emissions.” 

Continuing this theme, in 2022, Adrienne Buller wrote The Value of a Whale where she chronicled what she termed the misguided efforts of “Green Capitalism” concluding that “it will not save us, and it probably will make matters worse.” Her concern is with ”market-based solutions” including carbon pricing/carbon offsets as those used by fashion brands is that they shift a focus to actions that are not solutions but profit plays. Other writers have argued similarly that carbon offsets are a distraction. 

Like Gucci, many fashion brands, including Saint Laurent, Balenciaga, Reformation, and Allbirds, to name a few, have used carbon offsets to claim carbon neutrality, or “net zero” status. This, it is argued, shifts the focus needed on carbon emission reductions. (Good On You (2/29/24). 

In fact, nearly half of the world’s public companies plan to use offsets to reach net zero. (The Independent 8/20/2020) or technology AI providers such as Microsoft, planning to buy 8 million offset credits to offset their emissions overage. (Reuters 6/18/24)

On 12 July 2024, an NPR piece written by Dara Kerr, lets the following data releases speak for themselves. For those who see AI as a solution, as the fashion sector does (WWD: “What Will AI Mean for Fashion; McKinsey “Generative AI in Fashion”) Microsoft announced a + 29 % increase in its emissions from AI power usage, using 2020 as the benchmark only to be outdone by Google which posted a + 48% increase from AI using 2019 as its benchmark.

Is there a road behind this roadblock, a road less travelled? At the risk of mixing metaphors, “Yes”, if we begin by drilling down deeper into the bedrock of “Why”. 

To do so, we need a deeper understanding of what’s driving or not driving behaviour which goes beyond flash surveys of opinions of consumers which too often are then given standing through influential bloggers. Conclusions such as “people are influenced by how others perceive them”, (the social validation argument), as an explanation as to why fast fashion continues to grow and sustainability efforts to limp along, confuses correlations with causes and consumer commentary with subconscious motivations.

Taking a look, for example, at Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking Fast & Slow or Young & Rubicon’s research piece, ‘Secrets & Lies: The Hidden World of the New Consumer’, should alert us that on delicate issues we need to drill down beyond conscious responses. We need to look for the ”Why” in the deepest recesses of ourselves, our subconscious. 

Even a reasonable descriptor such as “social validation,” as an explanation, calls for segmentation modelling which can tell us its variations and scientific survey research design to support and validate its conclusions. With that, we are still only on the surface, but at least we have begun.

Our first step is to identify the global human archetypes that are part of our biological universal consciousness and that are operative as successful drivers of sustainability. This will inform and frame our research. Looking to Jung’s Collective Unconscious Archetypes for modelling, is where we will find our shared values and common passions.

Next, our message has to resonate across cultures and borders, for which we need a global language. We have one, it’s called branding. 

To succeed, sustainability must be globally branded in one set of images, symbols and stories based on archetypes that align with and inform sustainability. Once identified, we must embed them in our educational seminars and management learning programmes.

What are the archetypes that drive sustainability? The Caregiver and The Creator! 

At the risk of seeming to sound as a disrupter, I think we first need to ask: Why do we want to save the planet at all? A disturbing thought, but one which forces us to drill down into our own deepest feelings and values. I think what we will find is a common psychic quest for immortality to care enough to leave behind our mark of something better than what we found when we began. This animates caregivers and creators and suggests that social validation is but a misleading detour in our quest to arrive at “The Why.”