Dear Humans,

I’m back! Remember how I told you about green governmentality in the previous posts? Today, I will be sharing with you more about how it has affected communities and individuals. After that, I will be sharing with you the main concerns and challenges about green governmentality in the context of beauty products. 

Individual scale: 

Ultimately, the only way for governmentality to be successful is if self-regulation takes place. Self-regulation is when citizens learn the values that the government has inculcated in them and uses them as their own. Hence, if they find themselves to be deviant, they would automatically change to do the right thing (Siebert & Walsh, 2013). In the case of beauty products, these consumers will try their best to follow environmentally friendly practices and use those products. A crucial example is take-back programmes organised by numerous companies. These companies encourage their consumers to return their used containers to recycle them so that it does not contribute so greatly to cosmetic waste. A good example would be LUSH, where they provide incentives for their consumer (Hirsch, 2018). If a consumer is able to return 5 containers, they would attain a free mask from them. Despite these incentives and programmes, individuals still have to have the correct mindset and put in the effort to take part in these programmes. Thus, if more consumers start to participate, it would mean that self regulation is taking place and green governmentality has been successful to a large extent. 

Challenges of Green governmentality

However, there are numerous challenges faced in the process of green governmentality. On an International or National scale, the lack of unified cosmetic standards pose a higher risk to the success of green governmentality. If there are many different standards, companies will not know which to follow and end up making small compromises just to prove that they have done their part. Without this, sustainable innovation is not able to take place effectively and self regulation will not happen. This will affect the actions of individuals as well. If companies are not working together for a sustainable beauty industry, customers will not be informed of better choices and will most definitely not adhere to their environmental programmes (Feng, 2016). Hence, in order to achieve a long term successful customer education, it is vital to create a strategic alliance and a sustainable company image. 

Now that you’re familiar with green governmentality and how it affects the beauty industry, do question yourself about the decisions that you’re making in relation to your cosmetic choices. It is important to be critical about the articles you read and programmes you take part in.

Tense vibes,

Mother Nature 

References

Feng, C (2016). Sustainable Innovation in the Cosmetic Industry—Obstacles, Contributing Factors, and Strategies, 1-113. Retrieved from https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/211349124.pdf

Hirsh, S. (2019, March 27). How to Score a Free Lush Face Mask By Saving Your Empties. Retrieved October 28, 2020, from https://www.greenmatters.com/p/lush-recycling-program

Siebert, S., & Walsh, A. (2013). Reflection in work-based learning: Self-regulation or self-liberation? Teaching in Higher Education, 18(2), 167-178. doi:10.1080/13562517.2012.696539