The desire for climate protection vs. TEMU & Co.

when cheap goods destroy the environment and profits are the only survivors

The irony of a world that strives for climate protection, yet "cheap", "harmful" and "irresponsible" is becoming the new trend. A critical examination of the business model of TEMU and similar companies that offer cheap products at the expense of the environment and social responsibility, and fuel the trend of overconsumption. 

 

Companies such as TEMU and SHEIN act as an additional rocket booster for the phenomenon of the ever faster spinning carousel of overconsumption. 

 

The general problem: 

Things can often be produced very cheaply in our current economic system, but their production often means great harm to the environment. Profits are privatized, but the resulting damage to the environment is usually socialized. 

 

The products are often of inferior quality and are produced in a resource-intensive way that exploits people and nature. They are then flown all over the world with high emissions and simply thrown away again after a short period of use - after all, it was cheap. 

 

The issue of packaging madness is not left out either. Because in order to reduce costs even further and optimize profits, all the legal stops of customs trickery are pulled out. For example, even ridiculously small items such as a ballpoint pen are broken down into several parts and individually packaged in order to make maximum use of the limits of duty-free importation Returns are destroyed as it is uneconomical to put them back into circulation.

 

"In terms of

environmental friendliness and sustainability,

the business model of TEMU & Co. is simply a disaster."

 

The cheap items represent the wastefulness and short life of consumer goods that we buy and throw away after a short time. 

TEMU's company policy is undoubtedly extremely irresponsible and designed solely for ruthless profiteering - to the detriment of people and nature. And why? Because they can!

And we consumers? We are susceptible to the new trend of bargain mania and are increasingly buying cheap junk. We are also acting extremely irresponsibly because we put our selfish satisfaction of needs above the common good for many reasons. 

However! Nobody is doing anything illegal in the game of diffusion of responsibility. All market participants operate within the legal framework. Consequently, the system that enables the destruction of our livelihoods is poorly designed. 

At the same time, more and more people are credibly speaking out in favor of better climate protection. On the other hand, the number of people turbo-shopping with such providers is constantly rising to new highs. The question arises as to how the new trend fits in with many people's desire for sustainability.

 

Therefore:

- It takes honesty to recognize the systemic dilemma. 

- It takes the wisdom to understand its structure. 

- And it takes the courage to make an unavoidable break. 

An offer of a solution:

➡️ Personal emissions budgets set the necessary ecological guard rails within which every citizen can decide for themselves how they integrate climate protection into their lives - not whether, 

➡️ This decouples the issue of consumption from the question of guilt. 

➡️ By setting quotas for GHGs at consumer level, industry will transform its manufacturing processes much more quickly in the direction of climate neutrality. This is because it produces (intrinsically motivated) what we (can) buy with our limited budgets.

➡️ Certificate trading at citizen level, implemented by means of a complementary resource currency, relieves politicians of the need to impose small-scale and often unpopular measures and to monitor compliance with them. 

 

 

Find out more at: www.saveclimate.earth/basic-idea

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