Buy Nothing New encourages conscientious consumption
Social activists protesting against consumerism is a modern day cause, drawing attention to the pitfalls of Affluenza. Tamara DiMattina says the goal is to promote conscientious consumption not the end of the retail sector.
Recently, Buy Nothing New Month has achieved it’s primary goal of create debate around consumption.
To be clear, Buy Nothing New Month is about conscientious consumption. It aims to encourage us all to think about how we buy, what and why and to consider the alternatives. It promotes the second hand economy and the collaborative consumption options we now have access to that save our resources from landfill and extend the life of existing goods. (Time Magazine calls Collaborative Consumption one of the 10 ideas that will change the world.)
Those labeling Buy Nothing New Month ‘anti-retail’ and ‘anti-business’ need to look at why the campaign has been supported by Brotherhood of St Laurence, Sacred Heart Mission, Salvos Stores, St Vinnies and Red Cross as well as a host of second hand designer fashion and furniture stores nationally.
Buy Nothing New Month is supported by these groups, because it actively promotes charities and businesses, who just happen to be, second hand retailers.
Buy Nothing New Month could have been called ‘Shop Second Hand Month’, but would such a cutesy name have incited the debate we need to be having? That wasteful, overconsumption is bad for us, our wallets and our planet, that it doesn’t recognize our finite resources and bulging landfill?
Buy Nothing New Month was a finalist in the 2012 Earth Hour Award’s Future Maker’s category because it is trying to achieve more sustainable and resilient industries and economies into the future.
If we keep churning through stuff, without thought of where it came from, and throwing it away without thought of our bulging landfills, where will it keep coming from, and where will it go? And when is enough enough?
Ironically, after two years of overwhelmingly positive media coverage for it’s role in getting us to rethink wasteful consumption, Buy Nothing New Month has made headlines because City of Sydney is allowing us to hold an event at Customs House called ‘The New Joneses’.
This event will see two housemates live in a sustainably built apartment that they will stock with second hand goods, clothes and furniture, sourced through Sydney’s second hand retailers. What is essentially a second hand pop-up shop promoting the second hand retail sector to the public has been called ‘nuts’ by Barry O’Farrell.
We think Aussies spending over 10 billion a year on goods we hardly or never use, is nuts.
Even more ironically, this storm in a second hand tea-cup, happened the week responsible retailer, Patagonia, launched it's Common Threads campaign in Australia, which aims to get shoppers to ‘reduce’ unnecessary consumption.
“REDUCE- WE MAKE USEFUL GEAR THAT LASTS A LONG TIME. YOU DON’T BUY WHAT YOU DON’T NEED. We design and sell things made to last and to be useful. But we ask our customers not to buy from us what you don’t need or can’t really use. Everything we make– everything anyone makes– costs the planet more life than it gives back. The biggest, first step we can all take to reduce our impact is to do more with what we have.”
We've received great support from forward thinkers, such as Paul Gilding with his op-ed in The Daily Telegraph outlining Buy Nothing New Month is about protecting the economy.
While many articles conveyed a black and white argument that for the sake of the retailers we should shut up and shop, Dae Levine’s Sydney Morning Herald letter to the editor and an accompanying cartoon framed the discussion with more balance
The punchy name has put wasteful consumption on the agenda, but has regrettably, been misinterpreted by some. The intention is not to say ‘new = bad’ or ‘shopping = bad’. There are excellent new products on the market, designed with the ‘cradle to cradle’ philosophy in mind, that minimize waste and maximize resources.
Additionally, there are designers going to great length and expense to create beautifully designed, sustainable and ethically manufactured products. Buy Nothing New Month is to promote these goods, as it aims to encourage all of us to be more inquiring and informed about what we are really buying when we buy.
In the past two years of the campaign, our aim has been to promote small businesses and charities who respectively make a living and provide essential community services by selling second hand and up-cycled goods.
I’ll leave it to a retailer who cc’d me on a letter they sent to the Sydney Morning Herald. It’s not my place to name them, but I would like to sincerely thank them for seeing past the name to the outcome we are trying to achieve.
“To the Editor,
As a retailer, I support the City of Sydney's involvement in Buy Nothing New Month.
I have four boutiques, three sell new items, one sells designer second hand clothing and accessories.
As a business owner, I have a responsibility to make money.
As a retailer, I feel a responsibility to our community to provide good quality items, ideally produced locally and made to last.
I support the message of Buy Nothing New Month, which simply says, 'let's think about our shopping habits and do it responsibly'. Retail is in terrible times for a number of reasons.
We're flooded with cheap, throwaway imports, discount online offerings, and in many ways too much stuff.
Buy Nothing New Month encourages considered purchases, less wasteful choices. Buy less, buy better quality, buy locally or ethically made.
I am not concerned that Buy Nothing New Month is going to mean no sales in October. I don't believe the organizers want that.
I am excited this campaign may result in more thoughtful purchasing across the board. I believe this is what Buy Nothing New Month is about.
We can't keep shopping like there's no tomorrow, although we can make informed shopping choices!”
After studying PR at RMIT Tamara DiMattina worked in PR, marketing and communications in London, Beijing, Sydney and Melbourne. In 2005 she set up Trumpet PR + Marketing, a PR and communications business which now has a focus on positive behavior change campaigns. In January 2010 Tamara DiMattina visited Dharavi, Mumbai’s infamous slum to see where goods from the west go to get recycled. In March 2010, she visited Antarctica to study climate change, returning to undertake a Fellowship at Centre for Sustainability Leadership.In October 2010, she launched the first annual Buy Nothing New Month, a campaign for conscientious and collaborative consumption. Like FebFast for wasteful consumption, Buy Nothing New Month is about taking a month off unnecessary shopping.It’s not Buy Nothing New Never, it’s just taking time to reassess how we buy, what and why. Buy Nothing New Month promotes consumption that is better for us, our wallets and our planet. In its third year, 2012 sees Buy Nothing New Month launching in the Netherlands and USA.Buy Nothing New Month was a finalist in the 2012 Earth Hour Awards, Future Makers category.
Jeremy Frame
July 27, 2012 at 1:21 pm
Conscientious Consumption
I had no idea that such a movement existed, and it heartens me no end to learn of it. I usually do some research before I comment on a blog, but I got so excited I just had to post a few lines. Congratulations on the spreading the news about the best idea put forward for a long time. I shall now be finding out all I can about this, and I will be supporting it wholeheartedly in any way I can. Thank you so much. And Barry O’Farrell, and other consumer advocates of his ilk will (hopefully) soon be regarded as anachronisms.