This paper examines how marketing has been used as a tool to promote awareness among consumers about environmental issues and to encourage them to make sustainable choices. Marketing campaigns have been instrumental in the widespread adoption of sustainable practices such as recycling, second-hand shopping, and reducing personal waste. As consumers become more conscious of their choices, companies use green marketing to capitalize on these social trends. While many companies do have the intent to sell a truly sustainable product to fulfill customer needs, others simply use the label to profit, without putting forth a sustainable product. This practice is referred to as “greenwashing.” The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has put forth regulatory guidelines to combat this issue, but does not seem to have the necessary resources to penalize companies who do not follow the regulations. In fact, there are many guidelines that are optional for companies to follow, but not mandatory, making it difficult to spot false claims. We conducted two surveys of over 300 college students to assess their perceptions of sustainability and how it influences their everyday choices. We asked questions about perceived sustainability of various brands, some of which with known sustainability campaigns, and others without. We found that many students hold similar perceptions of sustainability and saw interesting trends in how sustainability affects their day-to-day purchase habits.
In 1996, the US Congress mandated that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) create and regulate the Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program. The program tests industrial and agricultural chemicals for hormonal impacts in humans and in wildlife that may disrupt organisms' endocrine systems. The endocrine system regulates the release of small amounts of chemical substances called hormones to keep the body functioning normally. Some chemicals can impede the endocrine system's function by mimicking or blocking hormone reception, which can disrupt processes of development and reproduction and harm organisms. As of 2017, the Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program is the largest US program to identify and regulate chemicals that affect the normal production of sex hormones like estrogen and androgen, which can have long-term effects on development and reproduction.
Understanding complex and adaptive socio-ecological systems (SES) to deal with our most challenging and overlapping problems such as global climate change, biodiversity loss, and rising consumption rates requires sustainability theory that is commensurate with these problems’ size and complexity. The received United Nations-based sustainability framework aims to achieve a balance among three pillars—economics, environment, and social equity—for today and for future generations. Yet, despite applying this sustainability framework for over a quarter of a century, the Earth is less sustainable, not more. Theoretical trade-offs between environmental conservation and economic growth have often reinforced business-as-usual practices and educational paradigms, and emphasized economic values over ecological limits.
How can the principles of foundational naturalists help clarify, enhance, and advance sustainability discourse? I propose that the principles of Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), Aldo Leopold (1887-1948), Rachel Carson (1907-1964), and Edward O. Wilson (1927-), express a worldview that captures and integrates a range and depth of historical, normative, economic, ecological, scientific, and social values for a viable and applicable discourse of sustainability.
This analytical study relies on (i.) textual analysis and interpretation of four key naturalists and humanists, (ii.) analysis of secondary sources that illuminate their proto- ecological and sustainability principles, and (iii.) interviews with leading sustainability scholars. Because these thinkers integrate science and ethics, natural history and philosophy, ecology and society, and environmental and economic problems within a holistic worldview, I call them systems naturalists. Their transdisciplinary worldview of one holistic system, with economics subordinated to environmental limits, links important values from the natural sciences and the humanities. The writings and examples of systems naturalists provide more robust historical sustainability principles that can help solve our most challenging SES problems by synthesizing a broad range of knowledge in the sciences, social sciences, and the humanities to inform sustainability paradigm, practices, and pedagogy.