Secrets to Sustainability on a Budget: Yes It’s Possible!
Have you ever been scrolling through social media and come across an ad that reads something like “If you care about the planet, then buy our product!” These products tend to cost more than their traditional alternatives, which isn’t an inherently bad thing if it means better quality and fair compensation for the people making them. Unfortunately though, more often than not, these claims are no more than greenwashing, which entails intentionally misleading consumers about the actual sustainability of products or services. This can make navigating the marketplace incredibly frustrating and confusing, especially if you have limited financial resources and/or time to spend on something like buying dog gear. While these concerns are valid, I am here to suggest that perhaps the way our culture approaches being sustainable is inherently flawed. Living more sustainably is possible for anyone, regardless of income.
It doesn’t matter what your tax bracket is because the central tenets of sustainability remain the same. In short, repurposing what we have, buying less, and buying better (when we have to) is a great recipe for sustainable living. Full disclosure, I am not rich, nor do I come from an affluent family. Much of my introduction to sustainable living came out of necessity – choosing the most environmentally-friendly pet accessories wasn’t a real consideration because our dogs weren’t generally getting new things.
Chances are, if you grew up in a scarce environment, you probably can relate that resources are precious. If something breaks and you don’t have the money to replace it, repairing it is a necessity. Indeed, reducing your level of consumption is not a huge issue if you’re not over-consuming in the first place. However, you don’t need to be struggling financially to be mindful of your resource consumption, and to carefully tend to what you already have.
When It Comes to Sustainability on a Budget, Research and Consideration Are Key Before Making a Purchase
Luckily, it's usually more sustainable (and cheaper!) to keep using what you already have! For example, what is the more sustainable option -- a new electric car, or the old gas-guzzling SUV you might have? You might be surprised to learn that it's actually the old SUV. This isn't to say that an SUV is eco-friendly, by any means, but if you're looking at the amount of resources it takes to produce a new car, vs. continuing to use the one you have, it's better to keep the one you have! This same principle applies to most things, including dog accessories.
Historically speaking, “reduced” consumption, reusing, and repairing was the cultural norm for pretty much all people. For instance, fast fashion didn’t exist in the past, so people held on to the clothes that they had. Learning how to sew and repair things was so standard that it was taught in Home Ec classrooms across the country at one point. However, with increased industrialization and exploitive overseas production, our culture has shifted away from valuing the materials and labor that went into producing things, and towards a culture of reckless consumption and disposability. While some people go as far as arguing that things like cheaply made clothing increase accessibility for lower income folks, this is a very recent idea, and it doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. Up until quite recently, even low-income individuals paid good money for things like clothes, with the recognition that they would be well-used for years. Most people owned far less in the past, but what they did own was intentionally selected and used.
Today our cultural approach to shopping is drastically different. How many times have you impulsively bought an item for you or your dog? How much of a role does cost play in these decisions for you? If you’re like many people, you probably buy impulsively at times, and are much more inclined to do so when you see a sale. Marketers are excellent at creating a sense of urgency around purchases – buy now to save money! This coupled with constant item turnover, of things like dog collars or new clothes for yourself, can seemingly remove our ability to take the time to consider our purchases. This is a large part of fast fashion business models – if somebody doesn’t know if they’ll find an item the next time they return to a store, they’re much more likely to buy it the first time around. I see the same business models replicated by many larger pet companies, with everything from new collar designs to new toys being manufactured and sold at an alarming rate. Conversely, what would happen if we took the time to consider our purchases beforehand? Nobody is saving money by spending money on cheap products that aren’t made to last. Indeed, spending time researching and considering our purchases is well worth it, both from a cost and a sustainability standpoint.
Perhaps if we spent more time researching our purchases, we would be less inclined to fall for misleading marketing claims. While “sustainable” has become a marketing buzzword, most of the time these products advertised are very far from sustainable. Without even getting into the materials and whatnot that might lend to a more sustainable item, it’s the rate of production for most of these “eco” products that makes them unsustainable, by the very definition of the word. I would be remiss to say that more environmentally friendly alternatives to traditional products, including pet goods, aren’t necessary. They are. But in order to be truly sustainable, we have to change our relationship with the way we consume such products. We cannot continue to consume at the same rate and call it sustainable. It’s simply too much for this planet and the people on it to continue to support.
Why Slow Production and Consumption Are So Important to Living Sustainably
Moving towards slow models of production and consumption – as opposed to things like fast fashion or fast food – is a critical part of getting out of this climate mess. Mass production is inherently at odds with sustainability, and that is a concept that is almost never relayed by marketers. Instead, marketers tend to tout the idea that the “sustainable” thing to do is to buy their “eco” product in lieu of a traditional product, and to continue to consume at the same rate. Not only is this not sustainable, but it also makes sustainable living seem out of reach for many. If you’re already living paycheck to paycheck, how could you possibly be expected to pay more for a product that you’re already struggling to afford? Speaking from my own experience living on an extremely tight budget, I would suggest buying less to begin with, and opting for gently-used items whenever possible. To be clear, I’m not suggesting that you or I will never have to buy something new again. Instead, I’m suggesting that we shift our relationship with our belongings, old and new, away from one of disposability.
For instance, if you’ve ever bought something from a local small business, be it dog-related or not, do you tend to appreciate the item a bit more than a mass-manufactured version? You might be less willing to get rid of an item if you have a personal connection to the maker, and perhaps even to the design of the product that was made for you. For example, I have a custom collar and a few leashes of different lengths from a small business that is local to me. When the collar (my dog’s only collar, I might add) became rusty after swimming in salt water this past summer, I reached out to the maker, and she happily replaced the hardware for me, free of charge. So instead of throwing away a rusty generic collar, I was able to have the collar repaired and increase my attachment to it in the process.
This isn’t to say that one must become hyper-attached to everything in order to be sustainable; I’m merely suggesting that if we know the makers and are part of the production process, we might gain more of a respect for the materials, time, and craftsmanship required to make something like a quality dog collar. Importantly, you can also be much more confident that what you are buying is ethically made, because in many cases, you’re speaking directly with the maker. This direct line of communication also allows for more customization (and in turn, a product better suited to your specific needs over the long term), as well as the ability to request things like more sustainable and local materials if they’re not already offered.
Making Sustainable Food Choices On a Budget For Your Dog
Our co-founder, Christie Catan, wanted to share one idea (above) for how to make super high value dog treats at home in a more sustainable way. She tried this just other day and reports that it made her house delightfully smelly for her dogs, Otis and Sully.
Some of you might be reading this and wondering about other things that we have to buy for ourselves and our dogs, like food. If we’re considering the environmental impacts of dogs, their protein intake is by far the most damaging, so it’s well worth examining more closely. There has been a rise in many “sustainable” pet foods, ranging from more ethically raised livestock, to insect-based dog foods. Unfortunately, many of these options are just too expensive for a lot of people. Again, marketers often posit such options as the only real sustainable choice for dog food. Terms like “human-grade” are used to make us think that we are providing the best possible options for our dogs, but if we consider things from both a health and an environmental standpoint, such qualities aren’t necessarily better.
From an environmental perspective, it makes the most sense to utilize all parts of any animals that are raised for consumption. This would entail feeding byproducts to our pets, which some marketers have done an excellent job of demonizing. In reality, many people already do feed by-products to their pets, they’re just not marketed as such. Any liver, tripe, or other organ tissues that are often sold as healthy options for pets, are in fact by-products. The Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) even recognizes that byproducts (which do not include hair, horns, teeth, or hoofs) can be “perfectly safe and nutritious” for dogs to consume. And while we might find things like udders or lungs extremely unappetizing, our dogs would likely beg to differ! In short, feeding our pets a more sustainable, nutritious diet doesn’t have to mean opting for the “best”, most expensive cuts of meat, or feeding them expensive alternative proteins (although I am personally very interested in the advent of insect-based dog foods). A more sustainable bowl of dog food can just mean feeding them some of the scraps (aka byproducts) of our own meat consumption, something that dogs are especially evolved to do.
Although cost can sometimes seem like an insurmountable barrier to living sustainably—especially when dogs are involved—this is rarely the case. Cost should not be a real barrier to living sustainably, because in short, using what we already have on hand is the most sustainable thing we can do as individuals. When we do purchase things, it is wise to take the time to (1) evaluate if we really need a new item, or if we can repurpose something we already own, or buy used, (2) consider how a product can serve us over the long-term, and (3) beware of greenwashing when buying something new. If there is one take-away from this article, I would like it to be that we should all take the time to question marketing claims about sustainability, and to buy less in general. Reshaping our relationship with our consumerism is perhaps the best thing we can do to live more sustainably, and it doesn’t cost a dime.
The Journey to a Sustainable Life and How To Live it With Dogs
Editor’s Note: Hi, it’s Christie Catan here! It's so tempting to equate sustainability with recycling, but it's so much bigger than that (for example: I spend more of my energy thinking about what I chose to buy or not buy). Am I perfect? NOT EVEN CLOSE. My hope is that our new TOC Contributor, Brianha Hendey, will help our community learn a bit more about how this home of ours (earth) works and why talking about sustainability even matters. I want to acknowledge that there are a HUGE number of reasons why people behave the way they do, and they are all valid. We are here to talk & learn with you (not tell you what to do). I'm hoping that our conversations will help us all better understand what contingencies are at play (yay behavior nerds!) as we make choices related to our dogs and perhaps allow you to bring even more awareness and intention to what you do (even if your behavior remains exactly the same).
Have you ever stopped to think about who you’re serving when you post a cute gear pic with a discount code on your dog’s Instagram account? When my partner and I decided to start an Instagram page for our dog, Boba, we were excited to share dog pictures, connect with trusted dog professionals, and meet other pet parents in our community and the greater dog world. However, the more time I spent scrolling through “Dog Instagram,” the more concerned I became about the environmental impacts of everything I was seeing. In an effort to make Boba’s Instagram feed a bit less consumeristic, I searched for sustainability-related dog pages and the results were unsettlingly empty. Indeed, I found nothing but a few pages promoting vegan dog diets, which were unhelpful to sustainably-minded pet guardians and the dogs in question.
Full disclosure, I’m a vegetarian. My master’s research focused on sustainable consumption. I was specifically interested in factors that might lead people to reduce their meat consumption and opt for higher quality, more sustainably-sourced meat when they do eat it (as opposed to completely abstaining). Without going into the behavioral science of it all, I am generally interested in helping people live more sustainably in a way that promotes their own well-being and that of the collective.
Dogs undoubtedly increase our well-being (in most cases at least). You don’t have to do much digging to find numerous studies citing dogs’ ability to increase our life satisfaction, as well as improve our mental and physical health in measurable ways. So while our dogs’ environmental “paw print” is far from negligible, for many people their benefits far exceed their costs (although I say this as a self-acknowledged dog-obsessed millennial woman).
This then begs the question, what are the environmental implications of dogs, and how do we lessen them?
Since I couldn’t find answers on social media, I took it upon myself to research and to share my findings with you, with the hopes of creating an open and ongoing dialogue on the topic.
How the Pet Industry Impacts a Sustainable Life and How To Live It With Dogs
In a country like the U.S., where dogs and cats are very common pets, the environmental impacts can add up. Indeed, dogs and cats consume as much dietary energy as ~62 million Americans, or one fifth of the U.S. population!
At a glance, domestic dogs are an environmental disaster. You can’t really sugarcoat the massive amounts of resources spent on dog accessories and what have you, but it’s their food (and the waste that follows it) that is the biggest environmental culprit. Roughly 30% of protein raised in the United States goes towards feeding domestic pets. If you’re at all familiar with the impacts of industrialized animal agriculture, then you know that these aren’t small environmental impacts we’re talking about. Yet even as a vegetarian sustainability professional, it’s very easy for me to mentally distance myself from the environmental and social impacts of Boba’s dry food as I scoop it, twice daily.
Indeed, the pet industry has somehow managed to completely separate dogs from the natural world to which we all belong. While the idea of connecting to nature has been commercialized across dog products, from food to toys, in practice it’s rarely more than marketing. Catchy advertisements with terms like wild, all-natural, and evolutionary, are slapped onto bags of dog food with images of wild animals, yet the food bears no visible resemblance to anything an actual wild animal might eat. And in most cases, it was manufactured with limited to no concern for any wild animals impacted throughout the production process.
In reality, domestic dogs are not “wild” animals. They have been co-evolving with us for thousands of years, along with their diets and behaviors. This is not to say that they are not as much of a part of the natural world as their more wild relatives. On the contrary – dogs are a great reminder that we as humans are also a part of the natural world.
With that in mind, I don’t think meat is the problem here. I think it’s the means by which we produce it that is problematic.
Why Considering Quality and Your Dog’s Needs Can Help You Live Sustainably
Our industrialized society is constantly pushing to be faster and more productive, compromising quality (and our ecosystems) in the process. This also persists at the individual level, where feelings of inadequacy persist if we’re not “productive enough.” So consider this a formal invitation to slow down with me and to connect with your dog in a meaningful way. If the pandemic has taught us anything, I hope it’s that we are all allowed to slow down. More than that, slowing down is necessary for our own health and the planet’s. I think it’s also something that dogs have been trying to teach us all along.
When you see ads on social media for pet gear, what are you considering before you tap "buy now"? Is it something your dog needs? Is it something you want because you saw someone else with it? Is it because it's cute and caught your eye? Are you hoping watching your dog with it will bring you some joy? I'm not here to tell you what to do but rather to invite you to pause and notice. What would happen if we took the time to genuinely consider our dog’s needs, and actually listen to them when they try to communicate those needs? Would they prioritize a bit of time outside with you more than a shiny new collar? When it is time to make purchases for our dogs, it’s much easier to mindfully select products that serve their needs if we’re actually familiar with them. Let’s take the time to observe the subtleties of their body language, and wonder at the way they engage with our natural world.
While living more sustainably with dogs might seem like uncharted territory – especially given the lack of conversation around it – I will leave you with one simple message: slow down. Take the time to connect with your dog, understand their needs and preferences, and actually research purchases before making them. We will explore what it might mean to make "better" purchases in the future, but for now, my invitation for you is to take time to really connect with your dog. Talk to you soon!