The Exploration of Mindless Consumption Lifestyle
R e f r a me Urban Food C o n s um p t i o n
Refuturing Cities Research Book Man Ping Chen
Introduction Background Global Capitalism and Happiness From the culture of Global Capitalism to people's lifestyle A destructive cycle Contemporary Key Task Threats in the contemporary society
Project Methods Reframing Circular Mindset Cradle to Cradle Redirective Practice
Apple Experiment Try to Live in Circular Lifestyle Apple's Journey
Grocery Consumption Research Grocery Consumption Consumption Behaviours Consumption Experience The sale that makes more waste- Low price, food pack Future Food Source Research
Circular LocF∞d System
Introduction This project is aimed to explore how the environment, mainly in East London, is shaping or shifting people's behaviours and habits which have a significant impact on their life. I chose grocery shopping as my start point in order to observe the consumption and disposed behaviour without too many unpredictable shopping motivation.
Background
Global Capitalism and Happiness Global Capitalism has been dramatically changing how people live and see the meaning of life. The key argument is that core values of this culture (economism, materialism, consumerism and individualism) may be damaging to both our sense of well-being and the long-term sustainability of the planet. 1 Overdevelopment in many industries accelerates the people’s life pace. The fast and busy lifestyle makes people easily lose the concentration on the intrinsic value and pursue the extrinsic value which is also easier to gain in the contemporary society. Under the socioculture, materialistic value and ownership are regarded as a way to achieve happiness. However, the pleasure is short and needed to be fulfilled again and again.
From the culture of Global Capitalism to people's lifestyle Under the culture of Global Capitalism, overdevelopment makes our life more convenient. Nonetheless, it is also easier to waste the resource we have, including the domestic use of water, the food waste, the cloth waste etc. Once the throwaway culture became a modern pattern, it is usual to get a new one than repair it when the 1 Sandra Carlisle, Phil Hanlon; Well-being and consumer culture: a different kind of public health problem?, Health Promotion International, Volume 22, Issue 3, 1 September 2007, Pages 261–268, https://doi.org/10.1093/heapro/ dam022
thing we have is broken, which could lead people to stop looking into the things we have. As the waste has become too complicated to deal with, it became a work that needs more labours and experts to process or manage, and people stop learning about how the throwaway culture is actually contaminating our planet. It is evident that the complexity became excuses for our responsibility of learning about and taking care of the place where we live in. Overall, without an awareness of the impact of Global Capitalism can lead to a future that is harmful to people to live, including the aspects of psychological, physical and environmental health. A destructive cycle Under the Global Capitalism, low life satisfaction and consumerist lifestyle form a destructive and unsustainable cycle, which tends to make people pursue the happiness, satisfaction and meaning through over-consumption that costs more money and time. Thus, in the destructive and unsustainable cycle, the self-value became a thing that needs to carefully and mindfully manage. Contemporary Key Task A sense of self and purpose in life are no longer ascribed or obvious, so their development becomes a key task (Featherstone, 1991).2 According to Domains of Gross National Happiness, there are nine domains, which are psychological wellbeing, health, community vitality, living standard, governance, environmental diversity, culture, education and time use. It is worth noticing that the materialistic value is not in the nine domains but is regarded as an evidence of 2 Featherstone M.. , Consumer Culture and Postmodernism , 1991LondonSage
self-achievement or self-value. From Amartya Sen’s capability approach, the capability approach purports that freedom to achieve well-being is a matter of what people can do and be, and thus the kind of life they are effectively able to lead. The capability approach is generally conceived as a flexible and multi-purpose framework, rather than a precise theory of well-being.3 Thus, I would like to say that, living in the city where is filled with fancy messages, having the capability to learn and judge is a key factor for making choices based on in-depth understanding, which is also a crucial ability of mindful consumption.
Threats in the contemporary society But why the unsustainable culture expands so fast? There is a network strongly firming the culture. Here I would state three pushers strongly that empower the unsustainable culture: # The high cost of housing # The design that follows the Capitalism # Mindless consumption habit In some countries, such as London and Taiwan, the high cost of housing has a significant impact on living standard, especially for the Millennial, which has a higher proportion of the population of Generation Rent. Having a home becomes a big dream. According to the Office for National Statistics, the average salary in May 2018 3 Robeyns, I. (2011, April 14). The Capability Approach. Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ capability-approach/#SpeCapApp
has a rise of 2.1 per cent within one year.4 However, average house prices in the UK have increased by 4.2 per cent in the year to March 2018 (unchanged from February 2018). Though within the two years, the annual growth of the house price in the UK has slowed, it is still a hardship for Millennial to own a home. Thus, more Millennial value the accessible happiness and satisfaction. About design that follows the Capitalism, it continually targets the needs of chasing convenient and the desire of being perfect. The stories in the advertisements are no longer merely about the products, but more about the fancy you will have after purchasing it. While people are too busy or tired to consider the things what they are buying into or what they actually need or desire, it could become a mindless consumption habit and cause a lot of related problems. For instance, fast fashion provides the short-term satisfaction, and futuristic technological products provide the fantasy that may increase the disconnection of reality we live in and produce the electronic waste that contaminates the planet. In the meantime, the intrinsic value is draining.
As a result, in this project, I would like to explore if the consumption behaviour can be more mindful and if we can add intrinsic value back into the things we already have while consuming.
4 Source: The Office for National Statistics, Average Weekly Earnings time series dataset (EMP)
Project Methods
Reframing Under the unsustainable culture, there are some new types of lifestyle appear or are awaken again, such as Wabi Sabi, Zero Waste Lifestyle, minimalism and tiny house living. Also, some designers respond to the unsustainable culture by using transformative design to reframe the future. As a designer, I would like to refer those concepts and methods to the refuturing project.
Circular Mindset The four mentioned lifestyles different from consumerist lifestyle focus on the circular mindset and intentional and mindful consumption. Living in circular lifestyle, they don’t throw stuff easily; instead, they care about the meaning or the ingredient of the objects, which is taking the ownership more appropriately and reducing the waste. Besides, if more people engage in the circular culture, the circular mindset can be expanded rather than within personal scale, which is about circular economic and environment. From the circular economic aspect, it is easier said than done since the chain stores which have more financial or marketing support to manage the business open everywhere, which causes many local greengrocers
closed and leads to the economic situation unbalanced. The phenomenon is one of the expansions of Capitalism, which is draining regional economic. Cradle to Cradle Conventionally design is regarded as a tool to make things profitable and beautiful. However, without thinking about the sustainability of our future, this is accelerating the waste generation, not only from the environmental aspect but budget and time aspect. Hence, some designers with the sense of social responsibility are thinking about how to redirect the way we use the existing materials, rather than making more stuff for simply profiting but reframing the unsustainable system. Redirective Practice During this project, I spent times on studying a new practice which is able to reframe the future by studying the contexts in different aspects and use that gained information to redirect the future of one place, such as The Boonah Two Project proposed by Tony Fry and Jim Gall.
Apple Experiment
Try to Live in Circular Lifestyle When starting to try circular lifestyle, it is challenging and so evident that how easy to live the consumerist lifestyle in the environment. The environment is structured with the convenient consumer culture, which is consuming stuff and generating waste at the same time.
To find out what could be the start point, I observed the waste, which are clothes, coffee cup, food waste and plastics. After analysing the waste I had, I decided to start with the daily food which is the fundamental and essential daily consumption, grocery shopping. The reasons to do so are some consumption are the outcomes of low life satisfaction such as a mountain of disposed clothes and some consumption is driven by the emotional motivation. Compared with the unpredictable and emotional consumption motivation, the grocery shopping is an ideal start point for changing the consumption behaviour which could be reframed for adding intrinsic value back into our daily life. Besides, everyday food is that people eat almost every day, which has a close relationship with people themselves, their body, their home and their lives.
My Apple's Journey During three weeks researching about the circular methods and experimentally forcing myself living with a circular mindset, I realized that one of the key factors that allows people have circular mindset is having the ability to look into the things we already have rather than buying new stuff. So the thing I experimented is apples which are the fruit we take for granted. The journey of an apple after being bought from a store is usually eaten and disposed. In order to see how the journey can be reframed, I started to focus on every step from choosing an apple in grocery stores to before disposing the waste the bin.
Throughout the whole mindful process of consumption, I found that apple is more than what I have alreadt known. What I have learnt is the types, tastes, texture and structure. I used the apples picked up on the ground to make a flat material and used the seeds to plant again, as well as used apple pulps, lemon fibre and pomegrante peels to make a strong container. The whole process of destructing the fruit wastes was a rich learnging process, which has a chain effect for me on learning from the things around us.
Grocery Consumption Research
Grocery Consumption From a 30-people survey and seven interviews, we analysed the results by using The Motivation-OpportunitiesAbility Model (MOA), we found that some people have an awareness of being mindful. However, the opportunity such as the environment or the accessibility and the ability such as knowledge or habit are the factors that hold the real sustainable behaviours back. For example, the convenience of buying with unnecessary packaging, being trained to unthink of the intrinsic value of the objects we consume or disposing of the things we over consume as usual are the normality under the throwaway culture. The following section is about the behaviours and experiences we found and personally experienced in different grocery shopping places. Consumption Behaviours People who tend to go chain retailer think that the chain retailers are regarded as a more trustable place to buy daily food. The food package for some of the people is essential since they need the information, expired date, origin and price, to help them decide the fruits or vegetables they are going to buy. What is worth noticing is that expired date shown on the packages is one of the dominant factors that most people who tend to shop in chain retailers rather
Where do you usually go grocery shopping?
What kind of knowledge or information do you know the most about the vegetables and fruits you buy?
than local greengrocery. However, people who prefer to shop local greengrocery don't see the information necessary. The way of choosing food is touch and smell. About the expired date, some of them who do not agree with the necessity of expired date said by seeing the colour of the food or touching or smelling it; they can know which one should be eaten first. than local greengrocery. However, people who prefer to shop local greengrocery don't see the information necessary. The way of choosing food is touch and smell. About the expired date, some of them who do not agree with the necessity of expired date said by seeing the colour of the food or touching or smelling it; they can know which one should be eaten first.
Consumption Experience The interaction with people is an evident difference between chain retailer and local greengrocery since there are many self check-out aimed to enhance the convenience in the chain retailers. Having a conversation with the owner of local greengrocery is also a reason for some people who regularly shop there, even sometimes they just pass by the shop. However, the obstacle for some people who do not like to shop local greengrocer is because of the unpredictable, including the quality of food and the interaction experience.
Consumer journey map of an local greengrocer where I worked with during the project
The sale that makes more waste- Low price, food pack From the points of view of the grocery consumption, we observed the way how suppliers communicate with the consumers. Three things that have a significant impact on consumer behaviour are the information that makes people stop learning about the food, the low-price sale which could cause overconsumption and the food pack that makes joint waste. Firstly, in spite of the expired date information, the price is the second higher factor that people choose the food. However, when people buying the food is trained to see the information given or set, they are less likely to use their knowledge or judgements when consuming. The mechanical behaviour could restrict the possibility of learning about the food such as nutrition knowledge. Secondly, though the low-price sale is a way to reduce the food waste in the shops, it usually becomes food waste in consumer's house. From the interviews, the reason people have much waste at home is that they think buying more at once is not only saving time but also having a lower price. However, the food purchased at the lower price could be an unnecessary consumption and expense. The last, the food pack which sells fruits or vegetables jointly is regarded as a convenient way that people can grab and go. But when one of the apples in the package is over-ripen, the rest of apples which are fresh in the same bag cannot be sold, which is a jointly waste.
The information on the tomato package
Future Food Source Research When I worked with a local greengrocer, what inspired me about a possibility of the future sustainable urban food source is that some of the fruits there are shared by the local people who grow their own fruit trees. It gave me an idea to make a closer relationship between human and food in the urban city, which is important for learning about the food we actually grow, consume and waste. As the fact that, each fruit or vegetable is beyond itself. It is the visible evidence of many things related to the human and the planet. For example, the increased carbon and decreased nutrition in each fruit or vegetables are related to over-cultivated lands and the increased CO2 caused by spreading urban footprint. Thus, a closer relationship between human and food is a way that we can learn the food beyond the information on the packages given by other, but actually easily go to the place where they are grown and see how they respond to the climate, season and the status of the land. Moreover, in London, more and more people having the awareness of rising urban density which leads to the losing green. Hence, more people start or join in local farms and community gardens, as well as grow edible plants indoor or outdoor.
The opportunity for the future With this shaping phenomenon mentioned previously, we see the desire of balanced urban living and the action for producing a better quality of daily diet is merging.
An orchard at a local city farm
Spring onions grown by local city farm
An aloe vera pot shared by a local resident who grows his own aloe vera tree at his backyard
Indoor edible plants, basil and Mentha mint
Our Proposal for the Future Urban Food Consumption
Circular LocF∞d System The circular system is aimed to optimise the sustainability of daily food consumption in greengrocers and provide a place where people can learn about the things they are consuming more naturally and intrinsically. The core object of the system is the fruits and vegetables since each fruit or vegetable is beyond itself, which is about nutrition, climate, time and materials. Under the over-consumption and disposal culture, it is important for people to relearn about the food we grow, we eat and we waste. Thus, there are three aspects of food consumption that the system is purposed to change.
Consumption - Providing new criteria based on nature While doing the investigation of consumption habits, we found that the best before on the food packages is the information that consumers know the most rather than the nutrition, which also trains people to stop judging a fruit is expired or not by themselves and then caused avoidable food waste. Thus, we want to show the natural ripeness level of each fruit and vegetable with the consumption tips shared by local people to enhance the food knowledge or cooking skills of the food. With this purpose, our intention is to encourage the consumption of non-perfect
commercial produce. Source - Grow locally and spread its positive effect The food source in the system tries to use the food as local as possible since we want to create a closer realtionship between human and food. So the people can learn about the food they consume more easily and also encourage more people to grow their own food. Further, with the current circumstance that more people growing food locally and desiring for the better quality of urban life, the system is designed to link those local food sources and make them more accessible to others local people since growing is an action having positive impacts not only on physical health but on mental health. Waste - The new meaning of the waste, fluid lear ning opportunity
The unsold fruits and vegetables will be destructed by the following purposes, such as deseeded to be planted, compost and material making. For example, lemon peels is a good natural material for making cleaner. Banana peels are strong fibre which can be used for making fruit leather. Another reason beyond the functional aspect is that while seeing the waste reused, people can see, touch or smell the different texture of each fruit or vegetable. While the materials or objects transferred from the greengrocer to the local, the learning opportunity could be spread and become a fluid learning opportunity.
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