How Do Infrastructures Shape Cultures of Consumption - Essay Example

The nature and the behavior of the consumer society have been observed to have huge variation while evaluating the consumption pattern. A number of variables are associated in affecting the consumption pattern. Understanding these variables and the amendments in accordance to them would be a necessity in the formulation of ideal marketing strategies. Moreover such an understanding would help the entity to be strategically updated as per the industry standards. The sustainability of the organization, its products are services also would very much depend on the extent to which its policies understand its consumers and the associated culture. The components and theories pertaining to the infrastructure associated with product or service are important factors which affects the culture of consumption. In this essay various aspects which would affect the culture of consumption especially those associated with the infrastructure is being analysed and dealt in detail. Infrastructure & Consumption The peculiarities in the features along with the theories associated with the infrastructure have substantial impacts on the psychology of consumption. The culture of consumption is largely associated with the infrastructure in connection with the product or service. Understanding the linkage between them is however challenging. This is because the consumption culture is subject to change in accordance to the change in values associated with life and also on the technological requirements of the consumers. It is also important to understand the dynamics of social change in connection with the changes in values of life. The Three Cs including Comfort, Cleanliness and Convenience are the complexes of practice are supposed to be factors which causes change in the theories of consumption. (Elizabeth Shove, 2003). These complexes of practice are hugely associated with the infrastructure. This proves the relation of infrastructure with the culture of consumption. These theories becomes of increased relevance as the consumer society is becoming more and more aware and conscious about these practices. The connection of these factors with the value of their life and its long term effect on the society and the environment is well understood by the consumers these days. In this context, it won’t be wrong to state that the industries of today have to address more responsible consumers. (Elizabeth Shove, 2003). Sustainable resource management is one key factor associated with the infrastructure. The management and linkage of the natural resources associated with infrastructure of the organizations dealing with the deliverance of products and services involving is a key factor to be analysed. The peculiarities in this relationship would indicate more towards the formulation of cultures of consumption. Energy and consumption culture It is an interesting fact that around half of the energy used in the world is utilised in buildings which are meant to keep people comfortable. (Elizabeth Shove, 2003). This very fact avers the importance of energy as a key infrastructure in the shaping of consumption culture. The consumption of energy has vital importance in the complexes of practices including Comfort, Cleanliness and Convenience. There is a lot of energy associated with time saving and time shifting technologies which contribute to the comfort and convenience of the consumers and also the cleanliness of the infrastructure associated in the deliverance of the particular product or service. (Elizabeth Shove, 2003). Oil, Gas and electricity are the main sources of energy which highly contribute in the quantum of energy consumption. The main challenge that affects the culture of consumption with reference to energy is that the balance in supply and consumption has to be effectively managed. (Vliet ,V Bas. Chappels, Heather & Shove, Elizabeth, 2003).This is because energy cannot be stored in a consumable form. This fact affects the consumption pattern to a major extent. The efficiency of non renewable form of energy in comparison with others is another key factor which influences the pattern of consumption. For example electricity is an energy source which is efficient than all of its alternatives in maintaining a continuous supply of energy. Thus when evaluated in terms of convenience, this energy would highly affect the consumption culture as it would dominate in terms of utility. As far as electricity is concerned, since its introduction, the efficiency factor has played vital role in development of demand. There are also historic records pertaining to the deliberate promotion of electricity as a convenient power source. (Vliet ,V Bas. Chappels, Heather & Shove, Elizabeth, 2003). It was also promoted with the reason that lesser amount of carbon emission was involved. These kinds of promotions by national and international policies play pivotal role in influencing the culture of consumption. However the policies regarding energy consumption has always depended on the availability of such resources. The cost effectiveness of the source of energy is another potential reason which affects the consumption pattern. The factor that makes the analysis of the consumption pattern complex is that is entirely dependent on the services rendered by the energy sources. The demand for a particular energy source would be as per the extremity of its utility. The more diverse it is, the more it would be demanded and consumed. Thus the direct relationship of the culture of consumption is with a package of services and not with an individual energy source. (Vliet ,V Bas. Chappels, Heather & Shove, Elizabeth, 2003) As far as the ethical and environmentally friendly usage of energy and other resources, previous researches have suggested that this concern is limited to the consumer society associated with environment field. As a result environmentally inspired programmes in history has never had a consumption perspective but were oriented on the natural resource management concepts like carbon emission, pollution, waste management and depletion of resources (Elizabeth Shove, 2003). This makes it difficult to understand the probable relation of the ethical energy management and consumption culture. When on one side the statistics on the energy consumed for the sake of the comfort of the consumers confirm the possible association of energy in shaping the consumption culture, on the other side the degree of that association is a difficult thing to be assessed. A continuous scientific monitoring of the resources and the energy intensities does point out future concerns. The consumption pattern of energy is showing an upward trend. The projections for future per capita energy requirement to take care of the comfort of the consumers are showing high level of increase (Elizabeth Shove, 2003). The expected and inevitable advancements in technologies pertaining to consumer’s requirements would however contribute to an abrupt increase in the energy consumption pattern. But this statistics would depend on the changing patterns and choices of the consumers in future. Awareness on the ethical use of energy would however affect the consumption pattern positively. There are positive signs observable in different industries effectively reflecting consumer awareness. The increased demand for products utilising alternate energy sources, environmentally friendly projects and other ethical energy management options are clear proofs for this. One another promising note is the prediction that within one generation, the nations would be able to achieve at least 10 folds of efficiency in the utilization of energy, resources and other materials. This would however to address the issues concerned with the increased exploitation of energy with relevance to the consumption pattern. However the increase in the efficiency of energy utilisation cannot expect to cope with the increasing trend in energy consumption. A more ethical outlook in the consumption culture is required to ensure the management and conservation of natural energy sources. Energy consumption culture should have alignment with the sustainability of the world and its resources. The vision and the social responsibility of the future generations must be strategically streamlined to make this happen (Elizabeth Shove, 2003). The promotion of green ways of life which are not functionally different from the normal ways of life but less damaging and more sustainable in its operational theories must be done creatively. The efficiency in the creation of such a culture would be in conveying the energy efficient philosophies by not affecting the luxury and comfort involved. Currently environmental impact is expressed as a negative impact associated with the energy consumption culture. On implementation of alternate energy consumption principles, the emphasis should be on shaping a sustainable consumption culture (Elizabeth Shove, 2003). The rule of any modern day consumption activity is commercialisation. One of the tactics followed by the modern society to positively influence the energy consumption culture is to treat environment as a commodity. Carbon trading and labeling of green products are some of the strategies followed by the modern corporate culture. These kinds of measures would however initiate creative developments in individual consumption culture and also in corporate consumption patter. Interestingly, such initiative have turned integral factor in the corporate social responsibility of many globally leading business entities (Elizabeth Shove, 2003). However manufacturers of products and services are using this green labeling process to act as a promoter in their marketing strategies. As the market data is suggesting that the products and the services which promote alternate and other ethical energy conservation measures are gaining good sales records, it indicates that the ethics in energy usage is positively affecting the consumption culture. However further extension of this responsible consumption culture has to be done. Extensive information will allow consumers to make better decisions. Thus the promotion of alternate energy sources and the consumption of environmental friendly products especially relating to energy have to be given priority in national and international policies. These kinds of measures would help to provoke the consumer’s interests in environmental issues. The efficiency of this policy is the availability of the channel to participate in energy conservation by consuming the products labeled as environmental friendly. Resultantly the consumer society develops an environmental concern. Spaargaren has opined that the consumer’s commitment will highly affect and motivate changes in the structure of domestic consumption. Further it was added by Spaargaren that such commitments would also redefine the linkages between households and socio- material-collective systems (Elizabeth Shove, 2003). This argument straight away refers that the commitment of the consumers resulting from their education on energy issues, would highly contribute in affecting the consumption culture. However the challenge pertaining in this context is that the awareness and the commitment as per the modern scenario is not string enough to completely replace the concepts of the society on comfort, cleanliness and convenience. Further extensive education of the consumer society would be ideally required so that the environmental consideration redefines the concepts of the consumers on complexes of practices. Then only it can be concluded that a substantial botheration has been achieved by the consumer society with reference to energy and other natural resources. However the most relevant limitation that is involved in the awareness efforts is the availability of alternative energy sources. The major lacuna in the current policies pertaining to environmentally concerned consumption of energy is that most of them bother only about the resources but not on the medium through which it is delivered and consumed. These policies deal with individual consumption of resources and the infrastructures associated with the consumption. These policies do not take care of the fact that the culture of consumption has complex interrelationships with socio-technical systems and is governed by collective norms (Elizabeth Shove, 2003). In this context, the policies must concentrate more on consumer expectation and conventions than on the utilisation of individual resources. This argument is supported by the views of Wilhite and Lutzenhiser that people literally do not consume energy, but in real life they consume energy services. These energy services include the culturally meaningful services that eventually happened to depend on supply of gas, oil or electricity (Elizabeth Shove, 2003). In totality these energy services combine consumption of various energy sources and other resources to contribute to the comfort, cleanliness and convenience of the consumers. Thus it is not the individual sources of energy that would affect the consumption culture, but the complex linkages of many products and services integrated in one or the other way. Works cited Vliet ,V Bas. Chappels, Heather & Shove, Elizabeth. Infrastructures of consumption: Environmental Innovation in the Utility Industries, London: Earthscan,2005 Shove, Elizabeth. Comfort, Cleanliness and Convenience: The Social Organization of Normality, BERG: New York, 2003 Read More