The Conscious Consumption Act

Perhaps the greatest threat to human well-being is current consumption behavior. We consume products from which the personal benefit we derive is far outweighed by the negative costs, largely environmental, to both ourselves and society. Ideally, prices would influence consumption decisions by incorporating the full lifecycle environmental costs to society into the price of a product. But most initiatives to incorporate environmental costs into product prices are failing. A complementary approach to influence consumption patterns is to provide the consumer with information as to the lifecycle environmental impact of a product in a manner that intrinsically motivates the consumer to change their purchasing behavior.

I propose legislation, the Conscious Consumption Act, that mandates all companies divulge information representing the environmental impact of the lifecycle of each of their products to the consumer. This legislation calls for the development of standards regulating the methodology lifecycle impact quantification and provides guidance based on behavioral economics and social psychology for designing and implementing eco-labeling initiatives leveraging social norms, individual values and emotions to inspire consumer behavior change. This paper provides background contextualization and discusses the key steps in the design and adoption of eco-labeling legislation.