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The world scene at Rio+30

The Market Analysis Institute designs discussions on production, consumption and lifestyle. Supported by research, analyzes of current trends and studies presented during Rio+20, the Institute projects an overview of discussions on production, consumption and lifestyle in the next decade for the world.

Let's imagine it wasn't just three months. But, sim, 10 years that have passed since the excitement of Rio+20. we arrived at 2022, month of June. And a new United Nations Conference calls the attention of the whole world. what we will be discussing? What economic and social certainties determining the global urgencies will be surrounding us until then?

The distinction between green consumption and sustainable consumption

Well before the meeting in Rio de Janeiro to celebrate the two decades of Eco92, numerous studies have already pointed out the growing conceptual and practical tension in the sustainable consumption proposal. If consumption plus production are blamed for environmental and social imbalances, since the years 1980, how can the ideas of consumption and sustainability coexist?

Throughout this second decade of the years 2000, it is very likely that this conflict is evidenced by the fact that the alternatives towards a green economy started to generate more – and not less – environmental impacts. Green or conscious consumption, held by some as a possible win-win exit for all, may end up generating the illusion of intended sustainable progress first; not the progress itself.

How is this possible? Simple: the gains in energy efficiency of new technologies, advances in productivity consuming fewer natural resources in production, recycling and reusing discarded goods to make new products cheaper translate into goods with better yields and lower production costs. This fact, associated with a speech in favor of consuming better and consciously (instead of responsibly or consuming less), multiplies demand – instead of disciplining it.

Outcome: increase – not decrease – of the final environmental footprint. It's the paradox of the "rebound effect". More efficient TVs and washing machines start to generate less greenhouse gas emissions per unit, but, as more people also start to consume them in the same market, the absolute amount of consumption and emission increases, far beyond efficiency gains.

OSquare 1 indicates how this was already becoming a reality in Europe on the eve of Rio+20. Most likely, 10 years later, this rebound effect is present in the rest of the emerging world, eager to consume more without wanting to be in tune with the clamor for environmental responsibility.

It means that the green economy proposal is destined to fail? Obviously not. But without maturing the debate on lifestyles and imposing a new agenda on the meaning and practice of conscious consumption, it will be doomed to frustration and – even worse – to skepticism.

Some other examples were already appearing before Rio+20. A survey among users of the Toyota Prius, in Switzerland, it was just looking to test the presence of this rebound effect. Would the purchase of a less polluting car be able to change other behaviors among its users?, such as reducing car use or adopting more intensive carpool practices? Or – on the contrary – it would make people feel that they had done their environmental duty and inspire them to buy a second or third hybrid vehicle or to trade already efficient cars for a larger and larger one., therefore, more "guzzler" of fuel, generating such a rebound effect?

Researcher Peter de Haan's colleagues were surprised by the study's conclusion.: none of the possible adverse effects were manifested among car buyers regarded as an icon of low environmental impact, at least until the end of the first decade of the years 2000. In few words: the challenge will be to better understand the drivers behavior of consumers in the face of different objects of use and consumption desire.

Changing the way you perceive and monitor progress

In 2022, START, CO2 emissions and coefficients to measure social inequality, like Gini, will continue to represent important metrics for determining a society's material progress and its environmental and social correlates.; but the lingua franca among politicians, economists, NGOs, scientists and companies should be the one that combines environmental footprint with human development.

The resulting index of this intersection – that of sustainability – will become the common currency of prosperity to be seized by specialized and general publics and coveted by all.

More than becoming a new way of competitively ranking countries based on isolated achievements, the new metric will guide national effectiveness in dealing with the most urgent problems – Ambiental degradation, scarcity of resources and social inequality. Thus, the sustainability index will mark the new horizon of public action and will suggest the possible paths to get there.

New Zealand and Finland were already profiled, in 2008, as models to be admired, followed by Canada, Australia and Norway. But also among upper-middle-income countries, like Brazil, examples appear, mainly in South America.

What logic will inspire this new way of measuring progress? The impact that society's decisions have on the well-being of its inhabitants rather than on the accumulation of wealth or material goods.

Instead of economic expansion as a measure of success, the focus will be on prosperity and a sense of well-being. Nothing new, if we remember the initiative of Nicolas Sarkozy, in France, to go beyond the so-called “GDP fetishism” or the Bhutan king's campaign in favor of the GIF – the Gross Domestic Happiness index. E, Nonetheless, nothing more innovative if instead this new approach is restricted to academic debates, running the risk of being perceived as hobby intellectual das elites, it also becomes a priority of the general public..

Too utopian or romantic to be on the agenda of public opinion? researches of Market Analysis, 24 months before Rio+20, already pointed to strong public support in favor of redefining the notion of collective comfort beyond macroeconomic indicators.

Societies eager for growth and enrichment, like the brazilian, they were willing to give up the conventional signs of fortune: for 83% production and economic billing statistics were insufficient as synonyms of national progress. This notion requires including social and environmental results and linking them to the population's health status in order to be recognized – genuinely – as progress.

with this attitude, Brazilians were only behind the Germans and ahead of Canadians and Italians (Square 3). And the preference was consolidated as real: in 2007, when the first survey was carried out, the percentage favorable to an extra-monetary definition was 69% – therefore, in a few years the conviction of Brazilian society has deepened as in no other corner of the planet.

Betting on a responsible connection between brands and audiences

Months before Rio+20, one of the main columnists of the British newspaperThe Guardian, Georges Monbiot, could make noise among public opinion, provoking: "We think we know our enemies: the banks, as megacorporações, the lobbyists, the politicians who only exist to please them all. Although, strangely, the sector that sews this hypercapitalist system is forgotten.” He was referring to the advertising and marketing industry. across the counter, the president of the institution that brings together advertising professionals, Rory Sutherland, admitted: "It is a segment that raises huge ethical questions at every moment of its existence, but otherwise it would be called incompetent… and I'd rather be called devil than useless.”

No brazil, we will hardly find such sincere statements among industry members. And if advertising has also benefited from the popularity of sustainability as a theme, increasing your revenue, the issue remains peripheral to the central agenda or just seen as another tactical opportunity.

A good indicator of this has been the green opportunism of large organizations, private businesses, public or government to announce in times of high visibility of environmental information, as shown by an unprecedented survey by Market Analysis (Square 4) about the advertising agenda aired in the week of World Environment Day: from 2001 until 2011, the number of ads eco-friendly published by public and private organizations in that week jumped from three to 17 – the same type of ads, a month before or a month after, only varied from one to 3,5 average.

This picture reveals the size of green opportunism in Brazil, measured from the advertising rush, to take advantage of the opportunity to associate the brand with environmental value, which is almost six times more intense in June than at other times.

The theme of advertising influence is no less in a country where this industry reached R$ 88,3 billions of billing, in 2011, more of 16% above the volume invested in 2010 – despite the GDP having grown less than 3%. This influence is even more salient among certain audiences, like the children's, since, for 80% of children between 3 e 11 years old, watching TV is the main leisure activity (Datasheet/Alan, 2010) and they are prime targets of the ads (64% of the total in the UFES/Alana survey, 2011). Outcome: three out of four of the parents interviewed agree that there should be a restriction on marketing and advertising aimed at children – and among the emerging middle class this support for regulation is even greater.. Will self-regulation be sufficient measure to reorient communication towards a more sustainable link between products and consumers, until 2022?

Pathways to the incorporation of sustainable lifestyles

At the beginning of the third decade of the millennium, sustainable lifestyles will begin to turn into a mass phenomenon, leveraged by technological advances.

At least that's the prediction of the project's researchers. SPREAD Sustainable Lifestyles 2050, a European social platform that brings businesses together, search, politics and civil society to develop a projection of the sustainable world in 2050.

In this project, four future scenarios were elaborated (Square 5). We discuss each of these projections below..

Super Elite

In the scenario of Super Elite, Europe evolves towards a sustainable economy, the result of well-defined official goals and structural reforms that transform market conditions.

The continent becomes a society that celebrates the ethics of learning, entrepreneurship, achievement and self-mastery.

The labor market is based on technological development, since scarcity of resources is the mark of the new age and the only source of success is specialized knowledge.. Everyone has access to education and learning, which are also the main forms of leisure.

Above all, there is a moral commitment to the continuous development of personal and professional skills that drive sustainable societies. The most influential citizens surpass material consumption and spend their time developing themselves personally and professionally..

Governing the Common Good

Governing the Common Good is a scenario in which digital reality helps to change paradigms and achieve sustainability.

The ubiquitous presence of computing drives people to interact in the digital realm and social networks continue to gain strength and practically replace some traditional institutions. Another change comes from the massive presence of 3D printers, changing the logic of production and making people control their own production and consumption processes.

The culture of self-creation predominates, causing new identities to be created all the time.

In this case, people find new ways of relating and the development of skills becomes simple, with all available information and digital training tools.

The perspective of multidisciplinary autonomy replaces the desire for permanent jobs. When people realize the collective potential of the new networks of highly competent self-taught professionals, new political movements gain strength, starting to also use new and more persuasive campaign instruments.

Gradually, these political movements, grounded in social networks, replace political parties and political participation returns to the citizens' agenda.

Local Circuits

You Local Circuits make up a scenario in which a radical energy crisis forces societies to reassess their well-being principles.

The rise in resource prices and the scarcity of oil lead to new state policies, which are inspired by experiments carried out in the years 2000, like the green cities.

Cities do not have the entire production process within their limits, but they all have resource flow management, in addition to a policy of maintaining close relationships with production units, thus creating the Local Circuits.

In the world of Local Circuits, scientific knowledge, business and innovation specialties are distributed and focused on the peculiarities of users to allow smart local adaptations.

Citizens are still dependent on global networks, but they value local products and cultures more than ever. Consumer choices become more uniform and traditional, once the designs foreigners do not sensitize the majority and few consumers can afford the costs of products made outside their domestic circuits.

The boundaries between work and free time dissolve, since much of the leisure takes place in productive workshops of community interest. How people now spend most of their time away from home, less living space is needed than in the past; e, how citizens live close to work, urban mobility is mainly on foot or by bicycle..

Empathic Communities

After the crash of the global economy as we knew it in 2012, followed by the paralysis of the nation-states and the political system, the scenario of Empathic Communities is installed. Slowly, cities gain political strength and supplant obsolete states.

No start of 2020, a new scientific view on human nature begins to gain ground: humans are genuinely altruistic. This evidence reverberates in all social activities, from work environments to family relationships.

After the high levels of unemployment in the second decade of the millennium, the different social segments join forces to create empathic cities. The infrastructure remains the same as in 2012, but the way to use it changes radically: people are encouraged to rethink physical structures already built in previous centuries as, for example, the roads, that previously stimulated extremely impactful trips and now serve as excellent cycle paths.

the future we want

These four scenarios point to a great convergence between the different stakeholders who made them. If we look carefully, we see that everyone addresses the issue of education and personal and collective excellence.

These are visions in which materialism has been surpassed and community and altruistic contributions are not only in the rules of conduct., but mainly in the value schemes of citizens.

These will be the realities that will surround Rio+30, in 2022? Of course we don't know. Despite Futurology exercises, these projections are supported by visible trends; and the pressures and values ​​that still occupy status minority will be able to climb positions with the majority of social actors.

think about what will happen, based on what a close look identifies today as the persuasions of very influential groups, society's leaders and active public opinion, certainly gives us a good perspective on the issues at hand a decade from now..

original content ideiasustentavel.com.br. For more information, doubts and suggestions contact us. Market Analysis is a research institute specializing in sustainability and social responsibility, Sustainable Idea partner in the production of content for the Dossiers and trend analysis, as well as conducting customized research and knowledge management for client companies. world world world world world world world world world world world world world world world world