Responsible consumption - the soft power of storytelling | Guido Palazzo | TEDxLausanne

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

Consumers buy and throw away things at an ever-increasing speed. This has a negative impact on the common good and paradoxically, also on the well-being of the individual consumers themselves. At the beginning of the 21st century, humanity is confronted with large-scale social and environmental risks such as global warming, chemical pollution, ocean acidification and water scarcity. While some corporations have started to innovate their approach towards ethical production, attempts to mainstream sustainable consumption have failed spectacularly. Palazzo's talk presents the idea of using "stories" that people can connect to in order to change the hearts and minds of consumers.

Guido Palazzo is a professor of business ethics at the University of Lausanne. He is passionate about understanding the dark side of the force and in his research he examines unethical decision making from various angles.

Let me start by asking you a question.

Imagine you decided to buy a new T-shirt

so you drive to your favorite shop,

you look at the choice they offer,

and you narrow it down to two T-shirts

that you find more or less equally cool.

You hold them in your hands,

and you know that one of them
comes from a company

that is known for very decent
working conditions in the production.

No child labor, fair wages.

You know it doesn't include
toxic chemicals for the coloring,

and it's made with organic cotton.

The T-shirt in the other hand,

as you remember
from the media, a week before,

comes from a brand quite notorious

for so-called "sweat shop"
working conditions.

So, maybe child labor,

certainly, no fair wages,

full of toxic chemicals, and not organic.

As I told you, you like them
more or less the same.

Who of you would, in that situation,

pick the more responsible T-shirt?

Please raise your hand.

OK.

That's a majority.

Now think about the last time
you bought a T-shirt.

Did you take into consideration

the social and environmental aspects
of your decision?

Did you think about

the social and environmental performance
of the brands behind the T-shirt?

Or the last time you bought
a computer, or a smartphone?

Did you check for
the human rights conditions

in the production of these products?

Probably not.

What you have here is
the so-called "intention-behavior gap."

We have all the best intentions,

but when it comes
to the real decision making,

we forget about it,

or we have many reasons
why in that moment we cannot do it.

What drives that gap?

So why does it exist?

Why do we so often fail
to do what we intend to do

when it comes to sustainability?

You might think
it has to do with information.

So if we just would know
about all these things,

then we would make better decisions,

more informed, more responsible
decisions as consumers.

Think about April 2013,

when this garment factory
collapsed in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

You have seen these pictures on the news.

You might even recall
some of the brand names.

Brands being produced there.

You might even have bought
these brands before or afterwards.

One year earlier,

you certainly heard of the story
about the workers at Foxconn,

the factory producing
smartphones and computers,

jumping from the roofs of the factory

because of the desperation
for their working conditions.

You all know that you might be
the last generation eating tuna fish.

You have heard all these stories
about child labor and slave labor

in chocolate, in sugar, in gold,
in coltan, you name it.

If you've never heard
about all these things,

you've probably spent
the last 20 years on an island,

like Robinson Crusoe.

So information is not the problem.
Information is not the problem.

We are very good in shifting
the blame somewhere else

and rationalising
our own unsustainable decisions.

We shift the blame on the corporations.
We say it's about production problems.

So we frame it
as a problem of production.

We ask corporations
to change their behavior.

There's some truth in that as well,

but that's only part of the story

because basically,
the sustainability problems

that we face today
are problems of our way of life.

We want more stuff,

at an ever higher speed
and an ever lower price.

So we are part of the problem.

It's not just about improving
the current production conditions,

it's also about changing
the culture of consumption.

So it's not about information.

What is it that explains this gap
between intentions and behavior?

Most of the time, when we make
decisions as consumers,

we do so in an automatic way,
we cruise on auto-pilot.

We act without thinking.
It's just routine decisions.

It's deeply embedded,
taken-for-granted habits

that drive our behavior.

Just think about the last time

you tried not to check emails
on your smartphone.

You probably failed.

Habits can be stronger than reason.

So if you want to make
consumption more sustainable,

we have to reprogram habits.

You must imagine a habit like an iceberg.

What you can see on the surface
is the behavior.

What you cannot see under the water
are the values and beliefs

that drive that behavior.

So if you want to change someone's habit,

which is not easy,

you can either
directly target the behavior,

let's assume we would try
to get rid of the habit of smoking,

so we can we make it illegal
to smoke in public places.

You directly target the behavior.

Or you can target the values
and beliefs under the water

that drive the behavior
in the first place,

which is much more difficult,

but which creates much profounder changes.

How do we normally speak
to these values and beliefs?

We speak to these values and beliefs
in our society through stories.

Stories shape, and reinforce,
and break habits.

Just think about
how children love fairy-tales,

how we transport values
and beliefs through fairy-tales.

Think about how the old
ancient Greek and Roman societies

were guided by strong mythologies,

highly complex stories that guided
the behavior of people in everyday life.

If you want to stop smoking,
for instance, to go back to that story,

you can either make it illegal
in public places,

or you can reprogram
the beliefs and values

that drive that behavior.

The tobacco industry is very good
in creating these stories.

For teenagers, they create

a story of coolness,
and risk, and adulthood.

That's exactly what teenagers want.

So they will smoke
as long as they believe it's cool,

and it's promoting their growing up.

For women, they used the story
of emancipation and sexiness.

For poor people in Africa,

they used the story
of the European prosperity,

"You can reach it a little bit
if you start smoking."

So if you want to change a habit,

you have to find stories
that are stronger and more powerful

than the stories that drive
the behavior in the first place.

The problem
of the sustainability movement

is that it has no stories to tell,

no stories that are powerful enough
to break the power of the story

that drives our consumption
in the first place.

What is that story about?

This is basically the story
of the 20th century consumer society.

It is a story that grew over decades
and became stronger and stronger.

It starts with the positive
outlook on the future.

We believe in a bright future.

We believe that technology leads us there.

We put a man on the Moon.

Technology will make
our production system ever more efficient,

so we can produce more stuff
at higher speed and lower costs.

We buy that stuff because by buying
stuff we become someone,

we belong somewhere,
we increase our happiness.

So the story that drives our behavior

is the story that makes a link
between technological progress,

economic efficiency, growth,
consumption, and happiness.

And you feel the happiness
in the immediate gratification,

when you bought
the T-shirt, for instance.

In recent years,

this story has received
a bit of competition.

There's another story going around,

and this is basically the story
about the side effects of the first story.

We learn that when we consume more,

we can increase our happiness
only to a certain degree,

then it falls down.

It's a U-shape; a negative
U-shape, a curve.

negative U shape, a curve.

We smoke, we get cancer.
We eat, we get diabetes.

We buy stuff all the time,
we feel empty and get depressed.

On the level of society we learn

all these consumption decisions aggregate

in large scale environmental problems.

The forest disappears,
the ice is melting,

and in a few decades,
probably Manhattan will be under water.

There will be more migration,
more poverty, more wars, less water.

This is actually
the post-vision of the future.

It's an apocalyptic future.
It's a future that is dystopian.

It's a story about
the collapse of the planet.

So you have these two stories,

the utopian story about your happiness,

and the dystopian story
about the end of the world.

Next time you go in a shop
and buy a T-shirt,

you will hear two voices in your ear.

One voice will tell you,
"why don't you buy both?"

(Laughter)

"You double your happiness."

(Laughter)

But you might start to doubt
about the evidence of that.

So there's the other story,

"Do you really need a T-shirt?"

OK, if you need it, buy
the organic one. the fair one.

...and did you come by bus?

(Laughter)

Did you switch off the light
when you left your house?

If you did all these things,
you might save the planet.

Saving the planet
by switching off the light?

Two days ago,
I was walking through London,

and there was a printing shop,

which obviously used
some advanced green technology

because in their window,

they invited me to save
the planet with them.

I didn't know that this planet will be
saved by a printing shop in London.

And what I assume is
that these kind of stories

are just an insult
to our minds, to our intelligence.

We don't believe them.

We don't believe
this strange causal link

between our little decisions
and the apocalyptic future.

So these stories are not credible.

They don't speak to our minds.

II they come in the negative form,
we are doomed, the planet is lost.

They don't speak to our emotions,

because they appeal to fear,
they give us no hope.

But fear only drives behavior
when the threat is immediate.

Manhattan will be under water
when I will be dead,

and you as well.

So this doesn't drive my behavior.

This story is not strong enough

to break the power
of the immediate happiness

that I can get when I buy both T-shirts.

We need different stories.

We need stories that include ourselves.

There are stories about our happiness
connected to the well-being of the planet,

stories of our future,

in which we are the actors
who make the decisions

and feel the change.

This might be a bit abstract

so let me tell you a story
about such a story.

I don't know how you would feel

if you hear that in your neighbourhood
a new fast food restaurant is opening up.

You might not even care,

but this is a story about someone
who got really really angry

when he heard that MacDonald's
was opening a new restaurant

at the Spanish Steps in Rome;

the Spanish Steps in Rome, at the heart
of the cultural heritage of Italy -

fast food, the opposition
of what Italians are so proud of,

their food.

This guy was Carlo Pertini,

and he channeled his anger

by creating the slow food movement.

The slow food movement
basically, is a movement

that fights against this broad nexus

of industrialized,
mechanical food production

and mindless, unhealthy
food consumption,

from the Monsantos to the MacDonald's.

This movement was created
by Carlo Petrini

because he believes
that we have to change the way we eat.

We have to eat
local food, healthy food.

We have to produce locally.

We have to protect our biodiversity,
our cultural heritage.

We have to recreate the link that is lost

between the producer and the consumer.

We have to educate consumers
and producers to change their habits.

This story that started
as a little Italian episode

has become a huge global movement,

with more than 100,000 actors
in more than 150 countries.

Why is this story so powerful?

This story is so powerful
because we all can connect to it.

You have concerns
about the health of your children,

you can connect to it.

You hate the growing influence
of multinationals on the way we eat,

you can connect to it.

You are a promoter of local traditions,

you can connect to it.

You want to preserve biodiversity,

you can connect to it.

You want to help poor farmers
somewhere in Latin America

at the end of the supply chains
of our production system,

you can connect to that story.

We all can somehow connect to that story

through our own beliefs
and values in that very moment.

What started
as a very small Italian episode

has turned into a trans-cultural movement,

because it is a story
that speaks to everyone, potentially.

So, the next time you speak
with your children

about sustainability, ask yourself,
"What kind of story will I tell them?"

And keep in mind

it has to be a story about yourself,
and your children, and your future.

When you are a manager, ask yourself,

"How do I talk about sustainability
with my clients?"

You probably in the past talked about

the greatness of your engagement,

your wonderful products.

These are small stories
that will not change the world

You need a great story
to which many people can connect,

in many industries
and in many circumstances.

When you are a teacher, ask yourself,
"How can I inspire my students?"

As a journalist, your readers.
As a politician, your citizens.

Yes, we need more technology
and better technology

to improve the state of the world,

but what we have underestimated so far

is this amazing soft power
of storytelling.

We're telling the wrong stories,
and we have to change that.

Thank you.

(Applause)