LClimate disruption imposes social choices on us. If we want to lead our ecological transition while preserving our prosperity and our freedoms, we have no other choice than to move towards more sobriety in our way of consuming and to find a path towards a more circular economy, That is, an economy that reuses resources more instead of extracting them, using them and throwing them away. It’s not about degrowth. It is not a question of making the French guilty in their act of purchasing, especially in a period of high inflation such as we are going through.
It is also not a question of stigmatizing companies: many are committed to the sustainability of their production model. This would not make sense and would even border on a form of hypocrisy: our jobs, our public services, our pensions are financed in particular by our model of production and consumption. On the other hand, I take responsibility for promoting a change of model. And I have taken responsibility for five hundred days in bringing to the government a policy of encouraging a revolution in the practices of producers and consumers towards a more reasoned use of the planet’s resources.
To take this turning point, we must fight very powerful stories and imaginations, which are totally contrary to the model of sustainable society that we must build. I am thinking, for example, of the narrative of “fast fashion”, which offers a vision of fashion with absolutely disastrous impacts on the climate, biodiversity and the oceans. I also think of the story of “Black Friday” [fixé cette année au vendredi 24 novembre], which praises a model of overconsumption that is unsustainable for the planet but also for our economic sovereignty, since most of the goods concerned by this operation (textiles, household appliances, consumer goods) are imported. The transition to a more sustainable economy also involves “made in France”.
We now have all the weapons to meet this challenge of the collective imagination. First, because the French are ready for change! According to the latest “Sobriety and lifestyles” barometer from the Ecological Transition Agency (Ademe), which has just been published, 83% of French people believe that we consume too much.
Then, because we assume to place ourselves on the ground of the collective story with the Ademe awareness campaign around the fictional character of the “dealer”. This campaign is on every screen and encourages people not to not buy, but to first look at alternatives to buying new, such as repair, rental or reconditioned products. Our message is not “buying is bad” but “before buying new, think about solutions that are better for the planet and your purchasing power”.
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