Deconsuming in a world of Overconsumers
It is 2022 and we are living in a world surrounded by goods and materials. The rise of digital platforms has increased our accessibility to consume easier, faster and en masse. Anything and everything we want can be found and purchased within a few clicks. This is exactly the destination we were hoping to reach, as we spent the last couple of decades building this capability through technology. This may have once been, and probably still remains a consumer’s dream, but little did we know at the time, our nightmare had already started. Overconsumption.
The Wikipedia definition defines overconsumption as “ A situation where the use of a natural resource has exceeded the sustainable capacity of a system. A prolonged pattern of overconsumption leads to the eventual loss of resource bases”. A simple solution with a big ask; is to stop consuming. But how can we, when we are becoming increasingly insatiable with what we have. What can we do to continue indulging – minus the side effects? If we strip back to the basics, it comes back to balance. In this context, if we buy something, we must sell something. In microeconomics, an overconsumption is the point where the marginal cost is larger than the marginal utility. In simple terms, the cost of the item is more than the satisfaction it gives you. A small action we can take, without going to the extremes and stripping back everything we own, is to sell or rent out what no longer serves us. This way balance can be restored, and we can continue to consume given that we maintain the marginal utility by extending the satisfaction it provides to someone else. Eventually, the only goods in our full possession are the items that have high marginal utility.
The rise of buying & selling platforms enable us to action this effectively. There may be a bit of reluctance in letting go of items in our possession. We can pivot our mindset into associating the selling and sharing of items with positive emotions, and not lose sight of the problem at hand.
Regardless of where we are in our journey to become less of an overconsumer, we can all start becoming a positive contributor simply by listing a few items here and there.
