by David Kupfer

David Kupfer: How is national happiness correlated to our material consumption? Does materialism actually make us unhappy?

Annie Leonard: There’s a complicated relationship between material consumption and happiness. Up to a point, there’s a direct connection. A roof over our head, enough food to eat, basic goods add to a person’s well being. But after a point, the relationship is less clear. Numerous studies in diverse cultures around the world have shown that the marginal happiness increase from more stuff decreases as our stuff increases: in other words, our 17th pair of shoes doesn’t make us as happy as a first or second pair. If overall happiness is the goal, we would focus on everyone getting what they need rather than a few amassing ever greater stuff.

Once our basic needs are met, our sense of material sufficiency tends to be relative: we define our level of satisfaction with our stuff in relation to what others around us have. So, if we’re surrounded by over consumers, we may feel unhappy with our stuff, but surrounded by people who consume less, we feel perfectly satisfied. That’s why I like to encourage people to develop an internal metric of satisfaction – so we can decide ourselves if we have enough and be less vulnerable to social comparisons and the constant onslaught of advertisements telling us we need more. Professor Tim Kasser who authored The High Price of Materialism writes about the link between increased anxiety and low self-esteem and a more materialistic outlook. It seems that a highly materialist and consumption focused mentally both stems from and leads to lower levels of happiness.

I am not saying that getting new stuff doesn’t ever make us happy. Sometimes it does. But often that happiness is fleeting and then we’re left with just another thing to maintain and the want continues for some new object. And even when new stuff does add to our happiness, that benefit is often undermined by the increased time we spend working, commuting, shopping and maintaining the stuff we have rather than spending time on those things proven to contribute to real happiness: leisure, civic activity, time with friends and family.

DK: How is our economy shifting in terms of progress as if survival mattered?

AL: We need to de-link progress from continued materials consumption. For too long, we have measured progress by the rate at which money changes hands and resources get consumed, or economic growth. But often things that add to economic growth actually undermine human and environmental well being. The British Petroleum oil spill adds to growth. Clear cutting a forest to make junk mail adds to economic growth. Every new car crash, case of cancer, jail constructed and incinerator built add to growth even though they undermine our well being. We need a new measure of progress that isn’t about resources consumed. Yes, we want growth – but not growth of pollution and debt. We want growth of healthy children, safe transportation, clean energy, nourishing food. Individually and societally, we would do well to redefine progress beyond materials consumption to include those things that really make us safe, healthy and happy.

DK: Are we facing a paradigm shift in our material reality?

AL: I’m not sure. Sometimes I think we’re on the cusp of it but other times I think we’re still in deep societal denial. I was in the airport in Qatar a couple days ago. The massive duty free shops there were the most glitzed out consumer frenzy I’d ever seen. Sports cars, blasting electronics, perfume, 3 story high billboards of scantily clad models, shiny gold and sparkles all over the place. It was out of control. I was wondering about all the shoppers, if they ever thought about the fact that we’re surpassing ecological limits right now, that the planet simply can’t sustain this level of consumption. I wondered about that as we flew over Doha and I saw the new gigantic high rise luxury condominiums built in a water scarce desert. Are we going to march straight into ecological collapse or are we going to be reflective and courageous enough to call for another way while we still have that option?

DK: Asia's growth in standard of living and quality of life seems directly connected to their material consumption. How can they avoid all the problems we have created around this in the West?

AL: I was recently in Bangkok and had to meet someone in a shopping mall there. In a country with an annual average income of less than $10,000, I wandered around this huge new shopping mall with high end designer stores selling watches, jewelry, shoes and other items which easily cost a chunk of the years’ salary for most Thais. Then, taking the train home, I passed beggars on the street, holding out bowls for change or rice. I hope that we, as a people, can include equity in our definition of progress.

It’s not progress if a small elite buys obscenely expensive consumer goods while children go hungry. I am reading a book right now called The Spirit Level: why more equal societies do better, which I highly recommend. Greater equality within economies actually leads to less ecological impact, greater social well being, less crime and greater security. Security doesn’t arise from having a $10,000 watch; it comes from having food and friends and good health and knowing the others in our communities have that too.

One advice I offer friends in Asia is to take just the best that we have to offer, not the obsolete toxic-laden consumer crazed pieces of our economy that aren’t working. There’s amazing innovation in clean energy production, green chemistry, sustainable transportation and much more in the West. Let’s share these cutting edge developments rather than the dirty industries that we no longer want. Let’s facilitate the rapidly industrializing parts of the world to leap frog over our dirty development stage, to skip the resource intensive, toxic contaminated, waste producing industrial processes and instead invest in the clean, green economy of the future.

For too long we in the West have sent our waste, our unwanted polluting technologies, even our banned products to less industrialized regions. Enough. If something is too hazardous for U.S. communities and workers, then it is too hazardous for Asian or African communities and workers. Knowing what we know now about the impacts of a fossil fuel powered dirty industrial development model, we should be cleaning it up, not spreading it globally.

DK: What shifts are occurring in the material economy in this country due to the economic changes taking place?

AL: I’ve talked to waste haulers and recyclers across the county who report huge differences in the material they pick up. First of all, there’s less overall trash since people are buying and wasting less. When a budget is tight, we’re all inspired to use what we have rather than run out and buy every new gadget. Some recyclers have observed more waste from cooking at home, as people cut down on eating out. Less newspapers and magazines as more people read on line and hopefully share subscriptions with neighbors. While there is a good side to this, it’s also critical to remember that there are a whole lot of people suffering from the economic downturn. How we treat each other during these rough times defines who we are as a society. I vote for helping each other out, sharing more, focusing on social fabric and community health rather than amassing ever more stuff. I think that option is better for the planet and better for us.

DK: Clearly our never ending growth economy is not sustainable and as you have said capitalism is not sustainable. How do we discuss this in our nation when those that challenge capitalism are called extreme or radical or wanting to turn back the clock?

AL: We’ve simply got to move beyond decades old stereotypes to have a current honest assessment of what aspects of our economy are working and what could be improved. One way to do this is to move beyond the “isms.” There are a number of economic models labeled with “ism” and I don’t think these terms actually help conversation. As a nation, our economic literacy is low enough that many of us don’t even know what the actual defining features of different economic models are. Many people carry baggage associated with the ism that may or may not actually be related to the actual features of that model of organizing an economy. At a public talk recently, a student asked me “if we don’t have capitalism, how are we going to get new inventions?” I’ve had people tell me that capitalism is synonymous with entrepreneurial spirit, democracy and freedom and I've had people tell me it is the very opposite of those things. With such a low understanding of what ‘capitalism’ actually means the term is too loaded to be helpful in a lot of conversations.

One thing we can do is progress our conversation beyond the isms and instead talk more about what kind of economic model would work. Rather than find a label for it right now, let’s get some agreement on the criteria for a healthy economic model. What would it look like? Would it allow chemicals that cause cancer and birth defects in every day products? Would it allow some people to be paid 2,000 times more than other people for the same hours of work each day? Would it allow destruction of the biological systems on which life depends? Let’s focus on where we want to go and how to get there. That’s not about turning back the clock but about taking the best of today’s world and making it even better in the years ahead.

DK: How did your experience with the Rockwood Institute prove pivotal in creating The Story of Stuff?

AL: The Rockwood Leadership Program is a California-based organization that provides training to people working for a better world. Its alumni include environmentalists, human rights advocates, progressive business people and more. It is a fabulous training for people who want to make the world a better place. I participated in a yearlong training in 2005. Twenty very experienced, very diverse advocates from a variety of fields met four times over the course of a year. One of the first exercises we did was give presentations to the group about our purpose in life and invite honest, authentic feedback. What an eye opener that was!

I hadn’t realized that as my passion and expertise increased about waste-related issues, my ability to communicate with others decreased. I’d become so immersed in the issue that I spoke with jargon, technical terms and references which were unknown and uninviting to those not also obsessed with waste. After my presentation, the group told me that I needed to start the conversation at the beginning, not 20 years into it. They encouraged me to replace jargon with more accessible terms, to shift my center of gravity from my head to my heart, to meet people where they were, so they saw the connections between our issues. It was incredibly valuable feedback.

Over the course of the year, we all practiced different ways of communicating our issues and continued to give each other authentic feedback. I am so grateful to have had the safe space to explore presentation styles and I encourage others on a mission to do the same with a group of colleagues – especially some from outside one’s area of expertise. Inspired by the feedback of the group, I developed the idea for The Story of Stuff – a fast paced, fact-filled yet accessible and fun introduction to talking about otherwise technical wonky issues.

DK: Were you surprised by the radical reaction from conservatives?

AL: The reactions to the Story of Stuff have been as diverse as there are people in the world. Really. We have received tens of thousands of emails from people all over the planet who thank us for making the film. Some say they have worked on some part of these issues for years, but hadn’t realized how their work fit into a broader system. Others say that they knew all the information in Story of Stuff, but hadn’t placed it all together intellectually. Others say they had never thought about any of it and the film transformed how they view consumption and other aspects of their lives. During the first year, we did receive some emails from thoughtful people who disagreed with some aspect of the film and with whom we had interesting discourse. We also got a few emails from people who clearly were not thinking critically about the issues I presented. I remember one that said, “If you’re against stuff, where did you get that shirt you’re wearing?” I thought, could we please get a little deeper in our discourse here? Of course I am not against stuff; I am against stuff that trashes the planet, wastes resources, poisons people and with which we confuse our self of personal self worth. That doesn’t mean I oppose clothes. But besides the rare whiner like that, we received few complaints for over a year, while we continued to have about 10,000 views a day to our website from all over the world.

Then, in 2009, the New York Times ran a front page story about how widely The Story of Stuff was being used as an educational tool in schools. It is being used in so many schools that we were inundated by teachers asking for more information, so we partnered with an environmental curriculum producer to make a great curriculum for teachers who want to explore the issues in The Story of Stuff in greater depth. We made it free to download from the storyofstuff.org. The NYT article inspired some conservative think takes to condemn the film and eventually Glenn Beck added it to his infamous whiteboard chart of what he perceives as a leftist conspiracy to undermine America. Since Beck attacked the Story of Stuff, we’ve received much more vocal critics. I don’t mind criticism; in fact I welcome it as part of a healthy discourse. We need to critique each other, push ourselves to see things from broader perspectives, keep learning and teaching. All that is good. But the latest wave of criticism is not that. We’ve been receiving extremely angry emails, often threatening violence again me. We have received emails denouncing me as un-American traitor, a communist and more.

To be honest, the content and the intensity of the responses baffled me. I didn’t set out to critique our economic model, to undermine our country. All I wanted to do was share the information I’d gained in 20 years of studying and visiting the factories where our stuff is made and the dumps where it is dumped. I wanted to get people to think more critically about where all our stuff comes from and where it goes, and understands the often hidden environmental, health and social costs along the way.

The angry emails saddened me, not because the authors don’t like me, but because they represent a stream of discourse is far below the standard I hold for this country. They were full of hatred and intolerance and a refusal to engage science. I worry for our country if we can’t sit together and share and debate information respectfully and peacefully. Engaged civic discourse is necessary for a healthy democracy; I had hoped we, as a nation, had evolved far past the era of threatening physical violence against those with whom we disagree.

DK: Do you think as some have said that The Story of Stuff is anti-capitalist?

AL: It’s funny. When I set out to make the film, critiquing capitalism wasn’t even on my mind. I am obsessed with stuff – with materials and how we use them. I am obsessed with how we can do things better, make products less toxic, longer lasting, more recyclable and less wasteful. I just don’t get what is so threatening about that vision. I don’t get why we have to fall into decades of stereotyping to have this discussion.

Capitalism is like a sacred belief system and anyone who even comes near criticizing its core functions is attacked and marginalized as in the days of the witch hunts. Why can’t we just have a civilized conversation about it? Clearly there are some parts of the economy that are working and some parts that aren’t. I don’t think it is un-American to admit that. One could argue that it’s more harmful to this country to ignore that and keep chugging along towards climate change, resource depletion, growing social inequity, obesity and other problems refusing to discuss it. It doesn’t serve anyone to put our heads in the sand or try to silence those pointing out the problems.

Capitalism is an old economic model; it was developed hundreds of years ago in a different era, around the same time that the height of medical knowledge included bloodletting and leeches. Thankfully, in medicine we encouraged a culture of critical reflection, of improving upon what is not working so well. I would like to see the same for the economy. Let’s talk about what’s working and what’s not and how to make things better for people and the planet. Why is that so darn controversial?

DK: How has your own lifestyle changed materially/in terms of stuff? Is there anything you’ve tried to rid yourself of that you haven’t been able to shed?

AL: I’ve never been a stuff-focused person. Perhaps it was growing up in a modest household, or spending so much time traveling after college that I never had a place to put stuff, but through a variety of experiences I learned that life, friends, leisure, adventure is more fulfilling than the pursuit of ever more, ever newer stuff. And now, having been to so many factories and dumps, I can’t look at something without imagining where it came from and where it’ll go when I am done with it and the reality is something that I often just don’t want to participate in.

I am certainly no monk. I live in a regular home with plenty of stuff just like other fortunate people around the world. It’s a small house, but there is plenty of stuff I like having in it. I have a weakness for old wood furniture and have collected plenty from Craigslist and yard sales over the years. I cherish my espresso machine that friends pitched in to buy for me for a major birthday.

I am not anti-stuff; in fact you could say I am pro-stuff. I want people to have more awareness and respect for their stuff, to appreciate the energy and materials and labor that went into making it and getting it to us. I want us to take good care of it, break out of the trance of mindless consumption in which we buy stuff we don’t need and chuck perfectly good stuff for some superficially improved version. I bring my bike in from the rain, I get my shoes repaired, and I resist the upgrade. I appreciate the toll on the planet that my stuff made and I want to stretch it out as long as possible before re-engaging in that take-make-waste cycle. The biggest way that I reduce my use of stuff is by sharing. I live in a tight knit community in which we share everything from cars to sports equipment to baking pans. Sharing enables me to conserve resources, dollars and time, as I need to work and shop less to get access to the things I need. Sharing is also great since it requires talking, so it builds community. Increasing the sharing in our lives is one of the most important things we can do to lower our impact and rebuild strong communities which we’ll need to achieve a more sustainable lifestyle overall.

DK: Are we seeing a rebirth of the voluntary simplicity movement of the 1970's?

AL: We’re seeing a re-birth of a more sophisticated version. With the growing scale and complexity of today’s environmental problems, it’s increasingly clear that reducing our consumption on an individual level is just not enough to make serious change. A growing number of people are questioning the debt-fueled consumer frenzy of the last 50 years, realizing that the constant stress, massive credit card debt, ecological crisis, social isolation and mounting health problems simply aren’t worth the cool stuff we’re able to buy now.

People are now incorporating a greater political and social analysis into their decisions. It’s not just about carrying our own bag to the store or buying local and riding bikes, it is about fundamentally questioning our current economic model and figuring out a way that we can live together on this planet more sustainability, more fairly and more fun. Don’t forget that many people are shifting towards reduced consumption or are already under consuming involuntarily, forced into consuming less because of economic need. For some, there may be a silver lining to this, as they realize that maintaining a high consumption lifestyle wasn’t healthy for them or for the planet. At the same time, we over consumers need to make space for the many people who are drastically under-consuming and who need to consumer more to reach a place of basic human health and dignity. Half the world’s population lives on less than three dollars a day. We’ve just reached a milestone where, for the first time in history, one billion people – 1/6th of humanity – are chronically hungry. So it is not just that some of us need to consumer less, we also need to share what we all consume more equitably.

DK: What are POPs and how can they be avoided?

AL: POP stands for Persistent Organic Pollutants, which are a particular nasty class of chemicals. Persistent means they stick around in the environment for a long time, building up n the food chain. Organic means they contain a carbon molecule, which means they can interact with living things in potentially disruptive ways. And Pollutant is pretty clear; it means it has the potential to harm biological systems, threatening human and environmental health. Many of the most toxic chemicals used in agriculture and industry today are POPs.

POPs are so dangerous, and in many cases so preventable, that the United Nations Environmental Program convened an international treaty to facilitate countries working together towards eliminating them. The treaty, known as the Stockholm Convention, is a critical first step but it needs to be protected and expanded. IPEN, the International POPs Elimination Network, is an international network of activists, scientists, academics, medical professionals and others working to make the promise of the Stockholm Convention real. Check out IPEN.org.

DK: Can you share a growing sign of hope where people are doing things differently and where change is possible in terms of lighter material use and efficiency?

AL: I am particularly excited about Zero Waste approaches which seek systems wide solutions to waste starting at the design stage of a product all the way through the safe reuse or recycling. I am also thrilled about biomimicry, in which scientists, urban planners, architects are learning from nature’s solutions to make products and structures that are safe for people and the planet. For example, black dye is often quite toxic so scientists have learned to mimic black the way the peacock does where the appearance of black is created structurally, rather than with pigment. Others are studying how barnacles create glue that is nontoxic and water resistant. Or how spiders create incredibly strong web at body temperature – imagine how we could revolutionize the building industry if we could figure out how to make equally strong material without the input of massive fossil fuels. There are so many solutions waiting to be discovered and implemented.

DK: How did your work with Greenpeace help you learn of the hidden environmental, health and social impacts of our stuff here in the US?

AL: I was incredibly fortunate to spend my mid 20s to my mid 30s working for Greenpeace International, tracking our exported waste all over the world. I was able to visit factories where our stuff is made and dumps where our stuff it dumped in many countries. I saw firsthand the hidden environmental, health and social impacts of all our stuff. And best of all, I worked with an incredibly smart and dedicated group of colleagues who didn’t want to just study the problems but wanted to figure out how to change them. The combination of first hand witnessing and the unlimited creativity and dedication of my team provided the foundation for my life of activist.

DK: When it comes to our material consumption, do you feel that we are going to change by design, or by default?

AL: The jury is still out on that one, but we don’t have that much time to decide. We’re perilously close to causing the collapse of many biological systems on which we depend. Dead zones in the ocean are increasing. We’re running out of fish. Communities all over the world have are in danger of losing their water supplies. Newborn babies are coming into this world pre-polluted with industrial and agricultural chemicals. It‘s not a good trajectory.

Many scientists say we have less than 10 years to take serious action on the climate if we want life to continue on this planet as we know it. We’re at a really serious juncture. I can’t overstate this. Many scientists whom I respect say it is too late to stop these drastic ecological changes and we need to focus on adaptation to life on a very different planet. I am not ready to go there yet: I still have hope but each day of inaction takes a little chip at that hope.

DK: As evidence in the success of The Story of Stuff, little mini films have a certain appeal. Do you have plans to make more?

AL: We’re releasing a number of new films in the coming year, all of which use the Story of Stuff style to communicate about core issues of our dysfunctional materials economy which, we believe, need to be examined and discussed more. We just did the Story of Cosmetics that looks at toxics in everyday products and this fall we’re releasing the Story of Electronics that is a look at planned obsolescence.

The Story of Stuff and our related films have reached huge audiences partly because we distribute them electronically for free. We use a Creative Commons license that welcomes anyone to watch, download, show and share the films as long as they don’t change them or sell them. That culture of sharing has been critical to disseminating the film and we couldn’t have done it without online media. Still, we also recognize that many people in the world don’t have access to high speed Internet, so we also make the films available on DVDs and I wrote a book of the same name.

We’ve already created the very popular micro sites storyofcapandtrade.org, and storyofbottledwater.org.

DK: Is there a guide or web page you turn to learn the real cost of the products you use?

AL: The best site for learning about environmental, health and social performance of specific products is Goodguide.com. Patagonia has a cool feature on its website where you can trace the supply chain of its products. There are some good resources for understanding parts of the real cost, but conducting a full cost analysis of all products would be an insurmountable task. The Story of Stuff book is packed with information about some of our favorite items: Cotton t-shirts, books and electronics.

DK: Where did you get this habit of checking out the contents of trashcans?

AL: I’ve spent years traveling to different communities to work with them on improving their waste situation, especially resisting incinerators and promoting cleaner, safer alternatives. In every community, people have asked me “what should we do with our waste?” I can’t answer that unless I know what is in the waste. Really, waste isn’t a noun, it is a verb. Waste is what we do to resources. A step in solving it is to not see “waste” as some homogenous mass that needs to be dealt with, but to take it apart and see what’s in it. There’ paper, glass and metal which could be recycled. There’s plastic, much of which could have been designed out of use by better manufacturing practices and purchasing decisions (e.g. ditch the bottled water habit.) There’s organics, food scraps and yard waste that could have been composted. So to figure out what solutions are appropriate in each place, we need to know what materials are being used and discarded and how they move around the society. A great way to find this out is to start poking around in garbage cans. See what people value and what is being tossed, what could have been avoided, what is present in enough volume to support a recycling facility.

DK: You are not really anti stuff are you?

AL: Actually, one could say I am pro stuff! I want people to have more respect, even reverence for our stuff. I want people to think about all the energy, materials, water and labor that went into making our stuff and to value it more, take better care of it, and not throw it away and replace it so quickly and so mindlessly.

The kind of stuff that I am against is that which is trashing the planet, poisoning each other and with which we confuse our sense of personal self worth. If we have both healthy stuff and a healthy relationship to stuff, there’s nothing inherently wrong with it.

DK: How has your own personal spiritual heart work impacted your work?

AL: I have had a lot of teachers that have come in a variety of forms – from conventional teachers to mentors to periods of hardship in life – and that all of them have increased my insights, strengthened my courage and helped me lead with love.

DK: How has being a parent impacted your passion?

AL: Being a parent has inspired many changes. Like all parents, I want the best for my kid, so I’ve become more vigilant about the products I bring into my home. I used resources like Goodguide.com and the Skin Deep database to screen products to avoid those containing toxic chemicals when possible.

Parenting has also inspired me to be a better activist. Before having a kid, I’d work late into the night and many weekends without hesitation; I cared about the issues, enjoyed the company of my colleagues and it was fun! Now I actually have something I’d rather do in my off hours so I have learned to focus more when I am doing my work so that I have time to turn off the computer and play with my daughter.

David Kupfer is a mountain biker, frisbee tosser, backpacker, organic farmer, environmental consultant, culinary risk taker and the creator/designer/producer of the San Francisco Green Map, www.sfgreenmap.org.

His writings of the past 20 years have appeared in The Sun, Progressive, Earth Island Journal, Bay Nature, Whole Earth, Talking Leaves, Hope, Diva, Yes, Earth First Journal, Film/Video, the Directors Guild of America, High Times, Heads, CCOF News, New Farm, Sing Out & Backpacker magazines, as well as on the Reality Sandwich web page, www.realitysandwich.com/blog/david_kupfer. A native of San Francisco, he lives in the North Bay.