The Campaign for Individual Ecological Responsibility



How would the world be if each of us, individually, was ecologically responsible ? If each of us made sure we didn't pollute the rivers with the detergents we used, didn't cause trees to be cut down for toilet tissue or writing paper, didn't damage the ozone layer by using certain aerosols, or damage the air we breathe by using leaded petrol ?

It would be a very different world from the one we see around us today - in which our enviroment is subjected to continual degradation because of our individual and collective refusal to take responsibility.

But it's hard for us to take responsibility when the problems seem so massive - we tend to feel that it is governments and industry that must make the changes: we feel like tiny insignificant parts of the whole.

The Campaign for Individual Ecological Responsibility is determined to change that way of thinking. If enough parts of the whole take responsibility, the whole changes - as we now know scientifically with the 'hundreth monkey' phenomenon, in which it has been shown that changes in consciousness in small numbers of people can affect the consciousness of whole groups. Besides this, the least we can do is take responsibility for ourselves - an individual responsibility which says "I am determined to do as little damage to the enviroment as possible."

This way of thinking empowers us - it gives us a sense that we really can do something worthwhile and it removes that nagging sense of guilt that we should be doing something about the damage we are causing. Having decided to take responsibility, the next step is to find out how best we can do this in tangible, practical ways. Since the Campaign was launched in February 1988 there has been an explosion of interest in ecological responsibility and the following books provide detailed information on changes we can make to our way of living:

The Green Consumer Guide & The Green Consumer's Supermarket Shopping Guide, Elkington & Hailes. Gollancz
Home Ecology, Karen Christensen. Arlington Books
How to be Green (Century), Green Pages (Optima) & A Dictionary of Green Ideas, John Button
Blueprint for a Green Planet Seymour & Girardet. Dorling Kindersley
1001 Ways to Save the Planet Bernadette Vallely.
Penguin Friends of the Earth Handbook Jonathon Porritt. Optima
Holding Your Ground King & Clifford. Gower
The Natural House Book David Pearson. Conran Octopus

Having launched the Campaign in Febuary 1988, we began gathering information about environmentally-friendly products. We discovered that there were hundreds of them - poorly packaged and over-priced and often difficult to locate. We started a project to initiate the development of shops that would sell these goods and which would spread across the country as health food stores did ten years ago. We researched the products, and in conjunction with a director of Greenpeace and a colleague from the European Business School produced a 34 page report which was circulated to all the major financial institutions, selected corporations and key figures in the business world. We held a number of meetings with such figures, including one in Amsterdam with the director of Holland's largest supermarket chain. We didn't achieve our original objective - which was the setting up of a chain of retail shops that would actively help people become ecologically responsible. But what has occurred since that time is far more important. The concept of individual ecological responsibility has become more and more current, and as environmental degradation intensifies, both the consumer and the retailer are becoming aware of their responsibility. The Green Consumer Guide, mentioned above, was on the Bestseller non-fiction paperback list for over seven months - an indication of the high level of public awareness. The recent One Earth series of television programmes broadcast all over the world will also have served to considerably increase public, corporate and government awareness of the ecological crisis. We don't think that any one group is responsible for the increase in this awareness - the Higher World is surely urging all of us to wake up - and every instrument is being used to achieve this goal - the media, Ark, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, and we hope - in a small way - we have played a part.

Now that there is such public awareness, the Campaign is still relevant. Two years ago, environmentally-friendlier products were hard to find. Now toilet paper, tissues and kitchen rolls which are made from recycled paper, biodegradable cleaning products, and rubbish bags of recycled plastic can be found on many supermarket shelves. Non-CFC aerosols are now commonplace, but the label should always be checked. But for individual ecological responsibility to be meaningful we all have to continue to act responsibly each day. If noone buys the new products the supermarkets will stop stocking them. If you can't find these products in your local supermarket, you can get them in many health food stores, and the more people who ask for them at the supermarket, the more likely they will be to stock them. There are two magazines to help you make informed and responsible purchasing choices:

The Ethical Consumer-£9 for one year's sub from ECRA Publishing Ltd., 100 Gretney Walk, Manchester M15 5ND.
The New Consumer £10 for 5 issues from New Consumer, 52 Elswick Road, Newcastle upon Tyne NE4 6JH.

In 1990 eight major exhibitions on 'green living' in the UK were organised, including The Green Show at the Birmingham National Exhibition Centre and a show to run alongside the Festival for Mind, Body & Spirit in London. A permanent exhibition of green living well worth visiting is at The Centre for Alternative Technology in Machynlleth, Powys Wales SY20 9AZ Tel. 0654 2400. It shows all types of alternative technology in action - including wind and solar driven systems, organic gardening, and new types of housing- all with a bookstore, health food restaurant and adventure playground. They also organise weekend residential courses.

The Order's Campaign focusses at the level of consciousness change - from which flow practical applications. The Campaign aims to change the idea that we are powerless, and to encourage the taking of individual responsibility. Once we act with personal responsibility, we can turn to the world of industry and commerce - and work to promote the idea of
CORPORATE ECOLOGICAL RESPONSIBILITY,
and to governments and nations to promote the idea of
GLOBAL ECOLOGICAL RESPONSIBILITY.

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