Toxic Omissions and Cancerous Growths: Addressing the Unexamined Assumption of Sustainable Consumption in Technologically Innovative Societies

Abstract: This study challenges existing dogma of economists and environmentalists with a finding that sustainable consumption in industrial societies is impossible within standard models of growth because the approaches that are being taken to investments (in new technologies) are linked with and dependent on increased consumption as a requirement of innovation and as part of ideology in societies. Though slight reductions of resource consumption are being reported in some societies that have high environmental standards, existing high levels of consumption in these industrial societies still continue to overshoot the biocapacity of the earth and technological policies are linked with the cause of the problem rather than with the solution. This speed and rate of reductions in consumption that new technologies bring is not sufficient to ensure the possibility of sustainability on the planet. These countries are locked into a situation that cannot be changed because certain ideologies of infinite economic growth coupled with the realities of current production practices and political choices currently prevent it to do so. The study examines existing international data, offers a case study of innovationconsumption in Sweden and Denmark, offers thought experiments on social change pathways, and presents a preliminary model of a sustainable technological society. A radical change in thinking and in policy approaches appears to be needed in order to continue technological advances within the biocapacity of the earth (and accessible nearearth resources). The author offers policy recommendations to governments to replace Ministries of Trade and generate new planning agencies and systems of measuring links between technology and consumption. It also advises researchers, non-governmental organisations, civil society and social thinkers to reorient ideologies and the goals of society and technology towards uneconomic motivations; a major global culture change, different from the approaches currently offered by those who call for sustainable growth or even sustainable development .