The solidarity marketplace of the Emmaüs movement, Label Emmaüs, denounces the practices of digital giants. The goal: to promote its circular and solidarity economy model, particularly with regard to its bookstore.
At the start of last year, Emmaüs launched an attack on Vinted and LeBonCoin, with a campaign called “ If you don’t wear it, give it away “. After clothing, Emmaüs today invites us to take a fresh look at the book industry by denouncing the unfair competition from e-commerce giants.
Abbé Pierre facing Jeff Bezos
To support independent authors and bookstores, there is no other choice than to buy new books. However, according to Emmaüs, more than 150 million new books (or 25% of production) go unsold each year and are destined for destruction. An ecological disaster (among other things), since it would represent the equivalent of a million trees.
For the solidarity movement, the ecological weight of so-called “stillborn” books is too important for things not to change. However, successive laws have not managed to respond to this imperative, quite the contrary, since it is today more expensive to store a book rather than destroy and reprint it.
Also, through its Emmaüs Label, the movement invites the book industry to think about changing the legal framework, with a view to promoting the united circulation of works, instead of their destruction.
“ Each year, Emmaüs points of sale collect more than 20 million books donated by individuals and the solidarity marketplace has 2 million references », Indicates Emmaüs.
“ All books are equal », recalls the Emmaüs Label
For this, Emmaüs has launched a new awareness campaign, called “ All our books are equal “. The movement thus wishes to denounce compulsive consumption habits, encouraged (and maintained) by the giants Amazon, AliExpress and Shein. Economic dumping which represents a threat to the planet, but also unsustainable competition for more local and responsible trade.
“ Where are the laws to stop Temu from spending $2 billion on Meta’s social media in 2023? Where are the laws to prevent Amazon from offering free shipping, or Shein from offering 8,000 new products per day? What are we waiting for to intervene? » asks Maud Sarda, co-founder of the Emmaüs Label.
The latter believes that there is more urgency than ever to combat these commercial practices, and favor more sustainable, fairer solutions, otherwise local cooperatives will disappear.
Source : Huffington Post
0