TOWARDS AN UNDERSTANDING OF THE CULTURAL SPECIFICITY OF THE ENVIRONMENT

 

Richard Jones, USD-Odense University, Denmark

 

 


Abstract

                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

Current trade conflicts between the US and European Union underlie a cultural cleft in the conceptualisation of the environment.  A framework of four environmental paradigms is presented: the ecological, conservationism, preservationism, and libertarianism.   European and US conceptualisations of the environment are placed within this framework.  The relevance for environmental marketing is discussed.

 

 

Introduction

 

In June of 1999 Board of Monsanto invited Gordon Conway of the Rockefeller Foundation[1] to talk about the role of biotechnology and GMO’s for global food security (Rockefeller, 1999).  Professor Conway, the author of a recent book about the possibilities of biotechnology to improve world food security (Conway, 1997) is a noted authority in the field of agriculture in the developing world.  The purpose of his talk was to provide Monsanto with an academic input to its pursuit of biotechnology and to support Monsanto in its mission.  The result however could hardly have been farther from the expectations.  Conway’s lecture was a biting critique of Monsanto’s handling of biotechnology and the way in which Monsanto promotes its technologies around the world.  On July 13, the US Secretary of Agriculture added to the debate by questioning the wisdom pursuing GMO technologies without consideration of consumer perception of the risks of such technologies (USDA, 1999).  As a result Monsanto made a significant climb down from one of its core product strategies and vowed not to proceed with the development of its so-called terminator technology, a technology which prevents seeds from reproducing.

 

The sentiments expressed by the Secretary of Agriculture are telling.  Consumer doubts in Europe have lead to a dramatic fall in the export of US grain to Europe from 1998-99.  Major food retailers both in Europe and the US are seeking to eliminate GMO ingredients from their products. The European Union has placed a de facto moratorium on the use and development of genetically modified foodstuffs.

 

Whilst Monsanto now admit that they underestimated the level of consumer mistrust with GMO technology, this case highlights an area which may prove equally damaging for many other firms in other industries.  What appears to be at the heart of this issue is not simply consumer attitudes to GMO technology but more broadly a fundamental, cultural cleft between the US and Europe on the relationship of man to the environment.  This case raises some particular questions. What is it that went wrong for Monsanto?  Why is it that European politicians and consumers have reacted so vehemently against GMO’s?  What can be learned from this case in terms of environmental marketing generally?  In order to answer these questions we need to understand the underlying associations that consumers and politicians in Europe have in relation to GMO’s and how this might differ to those of US consumers and politicians.  It is the thesis of this paper that fundamental, cultural differences in the way in which the environment is discussed in society (i.e. the predominant environmental discourse), become apparent, and present cultural barriers, through increasing export activity, particularly in relation to new technologies.  An understanding of these differences is a prerequisite for the development of effective marketing communication and strategy across cultures.

 

More broadly, this paper uses these cases to suggest that a cultural approach to the environment and to environmental marketing is necessary in the intercultural situation.  For firms marketing across cultures, communication and marketing strategies have to consider the cultural basis for the definition of the environment.

 

 

Environmental Marketing

 

Since the 1970's environmental marketing has become an increasingly popular topic of specialisation within the marketing field.  Emerging arguably with the work of Fisk (1974), there are now numerous works in the field of marketing management (Coddington, 1993; Davis, 1994; Ottman 1993) and marketing communication (Bernstein, 1992) pointing the way to more environmentally sustainable and profitable business.  Indeed many consider “sustainable marketing” to be a new paradigm of marketing thought (Fuller, 1999).

 

These works are typically aimed at: 1.  Identifying the need for sustainable approaches to marketing given current economic and environmental pressures, and; 2.  Giving guidelines for the adoption of sustainable marketing systems in organisations.  There has been, however very little theoretical development from marketing scholars in this area (Kilbourne, 1995).  Further, there has been no consideration, as far as this author knows, of the impact of cultural differences in the understanding of man’s relationship to the environment, i.e. that the environment might be conceived differently dependent on the cultural context.  The following case seeks to set the scene for a discussion of the relevance of developing a cultural framework for the understanding of the environment.

 

 

European versus US attitudes to foodstuffs

 

In Europe there is currently much consumer resistance to the introduction of GM products, especially foodstuffs.  Consumer mistrust has been branded as hysteria, by amongst others the British Prime Minister, but fears for so-called “Frankenfoods” (New Scientist, February, 1999), is real enough that major supermarket chains across Europe (including Marks & Spenser, UK; Carrefour, France; Esselunga, Italy; Delhaize, Belgium, and; Superquinn, Ireland) have formed a consortium to force suppliers to sort GM foods and secure GM-free sourcing.  The current conflict about the export of GM foods, at both the consumer level and at the international level with the failure of the attempt to regulate international trade and transport of genetically modified organisms in Columbia in the Spring of 1999 (as well as the impeding trade war surrounding hormone residues in beef), highlight a cultural misalignment between US and European expectations in this area.  Fundamentally, this misalignment can be traced to a divergence in conceptualisations of the environment and man's relationship to it.

 

This is significant for two reasons.  Firstly, these differences make it difficult for cross cultural negotiations, be they inter-governmental bargaining on import of GM foods, or consumers' attitudes and understanding towards these issues.  Secondly, such differences may also affect the ways in which theses issues are debated academically; this latter issue must be of acute concern for all scholars of the environment and environmental marketing.

 

 

Defining the Environment

 

As noted at the beginning of this paper, the theoretical foundation for the environmental branch of marketing is weak. Current literature can be classified into three main groups: firstly,  research within consumer behaviour seeking to classify advertising claims (Carlson, Kangun &, Grove, 1995), secondly within the field of management based on normative work on the benefits of introducing environmental management systems (Bernstein, 1992; Coddington, 1993; Elkington, 1994), and thirdly on work looking at the integration of sustainable / environmental management systems in firms (Davis, 1994; Fuller, 1999). 

 

However, there has been little exploration of the explicit relation between conceptualisations of the environment and cultural systems.  One of the notable exceptions has been some preliminary work carried out in Denmark on the effect of the cultural values of business students on their attitudes towards the environment (Beckman & Kilbourne, 1997).

 

A broad range of literature exists from which to draw in the search for culturally based definition of the environment.  This paper looks at several literatures.  Firstly, historical accounts of the development of environmental thought (Worster, 1985), secondly, rhetorical studies in environmental communication (Herndl & Brown, 1996), thirdly, political literature on the conceptualisation of the environment (Eckersley, 1992), and lastly from within the field of marketing, at an attempt to

develop a theoretical basis for environmental marketing (Kilbourne, 1995).

 

Writing on the history of environmental though in Western economies since the 18th Century, Worster (1985) identifies five main stages within the modern era (dating from the period of enlightenment).  These are respectively: The Arcadian movement, Romantic Ecology, Darwinian Ecology, conservationism, and ecological or “organic” approaches.  Worster notes that these approaches, whilst essentially chronological in terms of their emergence reflect fundamentally different moral positions in term of their philosophy.  One of the consequences of this is that it leaves environmental thought with a paradox, which he argues has been one of its main defining features.  This paradox emerges due to conflicting conceptualisations of the relationship between man and nature; one view looking at the preservation of nature and its intrinsic value and the other looking at the creation of an instrumentalised world and its exploitation.  These are intrinsically related to the two main moral movements in the modern period: the humanistic paradigm devoted to the liberation of the individual, the search for the ends of life and intrinsic value, and secondly, the drive for the domination of nature.

 

Worster’s second main argument is that current preoccupations with the scientific definition of the environment and environmental problems are no less value based than previous conceptualisations in environmental thought. Science he argues “is a product of culture” with its aims being defined through a complex web of metaphors aimed at rationalising its existence.  Whilst we will not dwell on this matter here his argument in relation to ecological approaches is interesting.  He puts forward the point of view that ecology based on moral philosophy; Amoral philosophies have their origins in persuasive, non scientific shifts of consciousness and then seek ways to make themselves credible and systematic, appealing in that prices, it may be, to the authority of science.”  Thus, according to Worster defining the environment depends on the prevailing moral philosophy.

 

Worster presents us with a view of environmental thought which suggests that there are no intrinsic qualities to the various stages to environmental thought.  Indeed it is quite possible that these stages can and do exist side by side in popular discourse.

 

Herndl & Brown (1996), present a series of papers investigating the rhetorical status of environmental thought in the US. Like Worster they emphasise that the environment “is a concept and an associated set of cultural values.”  Here stages or levels of environmental discourse are considered in terms of their rhetorical significance.  In this way Herndl & Brown and other scholars of the rhetoric of environmental discourse focus on the formation to construction of the environment through

communication.  They argue that in the socio-political arena  the environment exists as a social construction, the arena in which firms such as Monsanto are becoming increasingly aware. That the firm is being pulled into this arena is ver much the focus of the newly emerging field of issue management (Chase, 1984).  What is particularly interesting is the way in which the rhetorical construction of the environment is related to historical movements in environmental thought.  An example of this is the conflict between the Conservationist and Preservationist movements in the US (Oravec, 1984).

 

Through an analysis of modern ecopolitical though, Eckersley (1992) develops a framework for understanding competing conceptualisations of the environment.  She takes a political perspective in seeing dominant environmental discourses as a result of political discourses (that is political in the broad sense of the term).  The overlying humanist approach to man, his relationship to the non-human world and the belief in the rights of the individual is questioned by the onslaught of the environmental crisis.  Here she puts forward a model suggesting that the environment is presented in a continuum from ecocentrism (i.e. where the environment is conceptualised on its own terms) and anthropocentrism (i.e. where the environment is conceptualised on man’s premises).  The significance of Eckersley’s work in relation to this paper is, firstly, that conceptualisations of the environment are the result of the dominant social political discourse in society.  Secondly, that conceptualisations of the environment vary from the anthropocentric to the ecocentric.  I will return to this aspect later on in the paper.

 

One of the few attempts within the marketing literature to develop a theoretical framework to conceptualisations of the environment is that presented by Kilbourne (1995).  In this paper he builds up a multi dimensional framework based on Eckersley’s ecocentric-anthropocentric dimension and supplemented by a second, political dimension: radical-reformism.  On the basis of this framework Kilbourne suggests five positions (see Figure 1).

 

FIGURE 1

Levels of Ecological Concern

 

Kilbourne, 1995

 

On the basis of Eckersley, Kilbourne differentiates between levels of environmental concern on the basis of a positional dimension as represented by the dichotomy anthropocentric-ecocentric.  Additionally however, he suggests that environmental concern is linked to the expectation of the individual as to the nature of change that may will achieve environmental improvement; this he calls the political dimension as represented by the dichotomy reformism-radicalism.  Thus, Kilbourne aims to build into his model an implicit assumption of change towards a goal of betterment of the environment.  The weakness of this assumption is that it does not question the inherent motivation of the communicator in environmental communication - in his case the advertiser.  In this way the possibility that environmental advertising is rhetorical, and perhaps more focused on the maintains of status quo and the establishment of organisational stability is not built into the model.  Kilbourne’s model is of course aimed at classifying the “greenness” of advertising claims, and not, as is the case in this paper of outlining the possible cultural biases in environmental focus.  Kilbourne does, however, offer a greatly needed window of opportunity for developing more nuanced approaches to understanding the meaning of the term environment.

Towards a conceptualisation of the cultural specificity of the environment

 

Building from the theories presented above, it is clear that the term environment is no fixed notion but has both historical and rhetorical elements.  From the historical perspective which suggests that conceptualisations of the environment have followed successive paradigm shifts from Arcadian to organic, to rhetorical approaches which suggest that the term environment is the product of public discourses and defined within public arenas, the above approaches suggest ample room for the acceptance that the environment may have quite distinct meaning in different cultures.  Indeed, as Herndl & Brown suggest, the environment “is a concept and an associated set of cultural values.”  For the purposes of developing a framework for the understanding of the cultural basis of the environment, this paper suggest two dimensions built from the approaches above.  The first, follows Eckersley and Kilbourne in defining a spectrum from anthropocentric to ecocentric, Kilbourne’s positional dimension.  The second, is a rhetorical dimension, based on the spectrum from the romantic to the utilitarian.  These are described in more detail below.  The resulting framework allows for the placing of four main categories of conceptualisations of the environment: Ecology, Conservationism, Preservationism, and Libertarianism as shown in Figure 2 below.

 

Ecology: The ecology perspective to the environment seeks to define the environment as a system, for example through the concept of the “food chain.” Based on a utilitarian approach and built from a biological understanding of the relationship between biological systems.  The ecological approach focuses on the inherent characteristics of the environment.  This approach has variously been called “Deep Ecology” (Worster, 1985) and “Green” (Dobson, 1990).  One of the main protagonists of the ecological or “Organic” approach was Alfred North Whitehea­d who stressed the organic nature of the environment and argued for holistic approaches to the study of the processes in nature.  Whitehead’s approach, whilst distancing itself from “mechan­istic” approaches to the study of the environment, nevertheless is based on the intrinsic qualities of the environment and the “scientific” study of processes which interlock ecosystems.  More recently current environmental writings from Rachel Carlson’s “Silent Spring” to Paul Ehrlich’s “The Population Bomb” have stressed the systems nature of the environmental problem and assessed the threat to the environment in utilitarian terms.

 


FIGURE 2

Paradigms of Environmental Thought

 

Conservationism: The conservationist approach to the environment is built upon an essentially anthropocentric view of the environment, i.e. that the environment is essentially a resource that is to the exploited by man.  Emerging in the first half of the century, conservationism emerged as a reaction to a series of natural disasters in a socio-political period of depression.  Most notably associated with President Roosevelt in the US the conservationist approach owes its development to Frederic Clements who examined the causes of the dust bowl in the 1930’s and overcultivation.  The conservationist approach endorses utilitarian principles of maximising benefits.  Thus conservationists argue that the environment must be conserved for future generations solely on the basis that its resources are necessary for man’s welfare.  Thus the conservationist approach is essentially uninterested in the intrinsic qualities of the environment but rather in the potential of the environment to serve human purposes.

 

Preservationism: The preservationist approach in contrast to the conservationist approach takes its point of departure as the inherent value of the environment.  The preservationist movement has its roots in the writings of Henry David Thoreau and the poetry of William Wordsworth.  This approach sees the environment as something sublime, and is typically described as a creation of God and as a gift to man.  The aim of preservationists is to maintain the landscape for the benefit of man and to provide spiritual sanctuary for individuals.  The source of value lies in the environment’s intrinsic beauty.  In the US the preservationist movement is epitomised through the work of John Muir and in the US National Park movement.

 

Libertarianism: The libertarian approach is based on the humanist tradition towards the environment as epitomised by Gilbert White.  Here the environment is a place of restoration for the individual.  Rather than emphasising the sacred elements of the environment, the libertarian approach focuses on the individual and the right of the individual to freedom to roam for their own purposes.  The libertarian approach was highlighted by the famous right to roam actions in Northern England in the last century.

 

Whilst in defining four distinct paradigms of environmental thought, it is not the intention to suggest that these categories are in any way mutually exclusive in terms of the formation of public discourses about the environment in a given cultural context.  In most contexts discourse around the environment exists at several levels as suggested by Kilbourne.  Additionally, these levels compete against each other for primacy in the public discourse (Oravec, 1984).  The next part of this paper sets up a series of hypotheses about cultural predominance within these paradigms.

 

Ecology

 

Current debate around the nature of the environmental problem has been highlighted through the publication of a number of reports about the environmental status of world climate (Bruntland, 1987) and through international fora for the discussion of these issues, i.e. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.  Discussion of such macro issues as global warming and ozone depletion are developed in an ecology perspective, looking at complex impacts on ecosystems and developed in utilitarian, scientific discourse.  These macro debates influence those ways in which firms have to communicate on the environmental issue.  Thus, we witness the growth in environmental monitoring system, such as environmental management systems and environmental audit.  Additionally, we witness the growth in the “environmental movement” represented by organisations such as Greenpeace and Earth First which reflect Kilbourne’s radical approach to environmental reform (Kilbourne, 1995).  Such groups significantly also use scientific discourse to promote their causes (Jones, 1998).  Thus, contemporary environmental discourse, as it is constructed in the above fora is highlly reliant on the scientific discourse (Worster, 1985).  In this way, the first hypothesis is presented.

 

H1: As the newest development in environmental thought and with its roots in a utilitarian, ecocentric approach, the ecology approach can be expected to be present throughout all western cultures.

 

Kilbourne (1995) raises the point that ecology approaches to the environment tends to radically question the dominant political discourses of society.  Whilst the scientific definition of the environment might be considered value free, as Worster (1985) and Jones (1998) argue, it is subject to both moral and rhetorical forces which make it as much value laden as other paradigms.  He one has to just witness the, often vociferous debates over the extent of “scientifically proven” environmental problems.  Thus, ecology approaches may still be regarded as an as yet unproven discourse in the environmental debate.

 

H2: Ecology approaches in as far as they may be regarded as radially questioning established political discourses may be marginal in the overall public discourse on the environment limited mainly to the efforts of radical environmental groups and their discourses.

 

 

Conservationism

 

Given the largely US roots of the conservation movement, one might expect conservationism to be a dominant discourse in US environmental thought. A reason for this may be lie in the fragile qualities of the environment in the US and the more extreme climate than in Europe.  The focus on conservation, as exhibited through the exemplary work of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), is thus not surprising.  Current debates in the timber industry on the conservation of timber resources in the North West Pacific area may also be partly seen as an example of the conservationist discourse in action (although also incorporating elements of preservationist discourse, see below).

 

H3: With its roots in the US environmental movement, conservationism would be expected to be a dominant paradigm in US environmental thought.

 

Preservationism

 

The Preservationist movement, whilst having roots in both Europe and the US has had most success in the US, most explicitly though the establishment of the National Park system. Largely through the work of John Muir in the designation of Yosemite National Park, the establishment of pristine areas of natural beauty are unique in the world.  In contrast to the European adoption of the concept of National Park’s, human habitation is forbidden within National Park boundaries in the US.  This is not coincidental and must be attributed to the possibility in the US of designating areas of natural beauty in areas of extreme low population.  In contrast to the US the preservationist movement in Europe has had much more limited aims, being not least constrained by population pressures.  The essence of this contrast lies in the concept of the sacred and profane.  The designation of National Parks, National Monuments, and to a lesser extent of State Parks, tends to create distance between people and nature.  This distance is epitomised in the language that surrounds descriptions of the National Parks, terms such as sublime are commonly used to describe their natural beauty.  Distance is also created in a physical sense by the physical distance between most National Parks and areas of significant population.  The significance of the environment for national identity must not be overlooked.  Yosemite National Park was described as a symbolic representation of the nation itself (Oravec, 1984).

 

H4: Preservationist and sacred approaches to the environment and their link to nationalism and US identity result in preservationism being the most dominant paradigm in the US.

 

Libertarianism

 

The final paradigm, the libertarian paradigm has its base in Western philosophical thought.  As described above, it seeks the liberation of the individual and the possibility for the individual to realise their full potential as individuals.  In the context of environmental thought, this paradigm has been most clearly expressed in the “right to roam” movement in the UK in the last century and the succession of mass trespasses.  This movement was explicitly linked to efforts to improve living condition in the main population areas and the standard of living for the individual worker.  The link between the environment and the individual’s welfare differentiate this paradigm from the preservationist in that the motivation of the environmental movement is focused on the individual and not nature itself.  The securing of free access, a right not extant in the US on private land, was less focused on the intrinsic value of the environment and more on the emancipation of the population.

 

H5: Libertarian approaches to the environment are most commonly found in Europe where the natural environment and the man made environment cannot be differentiated and where welfare issues form the focus of conceptualisation of the environment.

 

Conclusion and Future Research

 

This paper has presented a framework for understanding conceptualisations of the environment based on sources in  a number of academic disciplines.  The framework developed suggests that four environmental paradigms may be used to characterise environmental thought: ecology, conservationism, preservationism, and libertarianism.  This framework has then been used as a base for offering explanation for cultural difference in the conceptualisation of the environment.  Given the lack of a theoretical base for understanding environmental marketing, this paper has attemtped to develop such a framework for use in the intercultural situation, vis a vis Europe and the US.  It is explicitly understood that this framework has been built up within the philosophy of Western thought.  However, it is hoped that the relevance of this paper will not be restricted to the geographical area of around the North Atlantic.  One of the main aims in the initial stages of theory building is to break extant approaches to the research subject and to question the bases on which they are built up.  In this case the aim of this paper has been to highlight the possibility of developing a cultural understanding of the environment.  The cases presented highlight the reliance of building up a cultural perspective to environmental marketing.  This cultural perspective is totally lacking in existing literature and may provide a rich area of research in intercultural marketing studies and help firms such as Monsanto to understand the basis for consumer resistance to new products and technologies.

 

The work behind this paper is by no means finished.  The next stage of this project is to test the hypotheses.  Further work needs to focus on individual’s attitudes, perceptions and associations with the term environment in order to construct an understanding of the conceptualisation of the environment.

Such work needs to concentrate on identifying the interplay between the paradigms presented in this paper with the popular discourses around the environment.  It is suggested that due to the exploratory nature of this work and the issue of intercultural adaptation of research questions that qualitative techniques be employed.

 

Techniques could include a series of in-depth interviews undertaken with consumers in the US and Europe, building on well tested in-depth interview techniques (McCracken, 1988), and projective techniques to draw out the associations that individuals have in their relationship to the environment.  Also, an analysis of popular discourse on the environment, as represented in popular media such as newspapers, television, and magazines.  Such an analysis could continue to focus on a specific issue such as genetically modified foods.  It will need to focus on the rhetorical terms used to defined the individual’s relationship to the environment and compares these to terms used in prevailing discourses in the public debate on the issue of GM foods.

 

 

References

 

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Bruntland Commission, (1987) Our Common Future, Oxford:  Oxford University Press.

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Chase, W.Howard, (1984) Issue Management: Origins of the Future, Stamford, Conn.: Issue Action Publications.

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Jones Richard Ian, (1998) “What's the Problem?: The Rhetorical Definition of Environmental Issues,” proceedings of 4th Biennial Conference on Communication and Environment,  Syracuse, New York: ESF, 145-58.

Kilbourne William E, (1995) “Green Advertising: Salvation or Oxymoron?”  Journal of Advertising,  2, 7-19.

McCracken Grant, (1988)  The Long Interview,  Newbury Park:  Sage.

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Ottman Jacquelyn O., (1993)  Green Marketing: Challenges and Opportunities for the New Marketing Age,  Lincolnwood:  NTC Business Books.

Rockefeller Foundation, (1999) The Rockefeller Foundation and Plant Technology, speech delivered to Monsanto Board, 6/24/99

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[1]The Rockefeller Foundation is “a global foundation with a mandate and commitment to enrich and sustain the lives of the poor and excluded throughout the world.”