no sustainability in shame

Vivienne Guo, USyd Women’s Officer 2020, on the classism of the sustainability movement.

With the impending doom of our planet on the horizon, environmentalism and sustainable lifestyle choices have rightfully come to the forefront of the global consciousness. Yet the sustainability movement has often come under fire for being elitist, and it absolutely is.

Sustainable consumption is the use of services and products that cause minimal harm to our planet, preserving it for future generations. But the lack of an intersectional outlook on sustainability means that many do not differentiate between those who are unwilling to be sustainable and those who cannot. Being “good” to the planet has a substantial price tag and effectively locks out low-income brackets.

We are all familiar with free-market capitalism—an economic and political system where trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit. Because freemarket capitalism is profit-driven, it has ensured that sustainability is not universally accessible. Higher price points for sustainable essentials such as food and clothing effectively bar these options from people in lower-income brackets. Yet, the sustainability movement often neglects to critique capitalism as the main driver of the profitdriven actions of large corporations. Approvals for the disastrous Adani coalmine have been repeatedly forced through by state and federal governments, showing us that as long as ecocide is profitable, capitalist elites will continue to carry it out at a global level. But the sustainability movement too often sets it sights on the choices of individuals, resulting in a regrettable culture of shame that villainises non-sustainable lifestyles and ignores the complex barriers to entry created by capitalism.

A statement made by animal rights group PETA claimed that eating meat and being an environmentalist are mutually exclusive.

This cynical dichotomy highlights a central flaw in the sustainability movement – the onus of saving the planet should not merely be on consumerism but on destructive multi-million-dollar corporations with devastating ecological footprints. While ethical fashion brands like Reformation or With Jéan are heralded as shining beacons of sustainability in comparison, they are still positioned to be profitable, as capitalism would have them be. With prices reaching into the hundreds, they are inaccessible to most. Overly optimistic representations of ethical fashion uphold the same culture of shame as in PETA’s activism, because such optimism can be exclusionary, and perhaps unwittingly create an economy of cultural capital that revolves around one’s ability to access or perform sustainability. The absence of affordable sustainable alternatives feeds back into the social media shame culture.

That being said, those who can, should buy keep cups or become vegan. The meat industry treats animals horrifically and we are devastating our planet with the wasteful processes that underlie fast fashion. However, the priorities of low-income demographics lie in quiet everyday survival. Shame cultures misconstrue the inability to be sustainable with an unwillingness. Shame does nothing to reduce barriers of entry into sustainability, while creating animosity that gatekeeps climate justice. We should not shame poor people for being poor, we should focus on the root of the inaccessibility dilemma—capitalism. Capitalism tricks us into thinking that buying and living sustainably will make a world of difference when the Carbon Majors Report reveals that just 25 corporations have been responsible for over half of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions over the last 30 years.

Art by Claire Ollivain

Eco-friendly consumerism should not be seen as the final destination of climate justice but as a side quest. We must approach individual sustainability critically with an intersectional and anti-capitalist lens because sustainability is a luxury under capitalism. Until the sustainability movement stops weaponizing shame and ignoring accessibility, it cannot meaningfully contribute to the continued survival of our planet.