Inspiring Green Consumer Choices

Overcoming unsustainable consumerism requires shifting to a circular economy.

The unprecedented, rapid growth of the global middle class in recent years has ushered in an unsustainable rise in consumption, as people across the world increasingly tax the Earth’s limited resources. Americans spend more than $1.2 trillion per year on nonessential services and goods, with the average household holding roughly 300,000 material possessions. An average American household – comprising 2.6 people – discards over two tons of solid waste and roughly 100 gallons of wastewater in a single year. Global plastic production rose sharply between 1950 and 2016, from roughly two million to over 380 million tons, yet people have only recycled less than 10% of that quantity. Humanity must contend with the “Great Acceleration”: an era in which human activity rapidly affects the environment, altering the biosphere and climate in meaningful and unhealthy ways.

Scottish psychologist and philosopher Kenneth Craik coined the term “mental model” to describe how human minds build internal representations of the external world. Influencing...