German supermarket seeks to charge shoppers 'true' environmental cost
German supermarket seeks to charge shoppers 'true' environmental cost
German shoppers, who enjoy some of Europe's cheapest groceries, are being asked this week by discount supermarket Penny to pay extra for some items to cover their "true cost" as it seeks to raise awareness of the environmental price of producing food.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/948960
Archived version: https://archive.ph/6s6zn
Archived version: https://web.archive.org/web/20230802050406/https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/german-supermarket-seeks-charge-shoppers-true-environmental-cost-2023-08-01/
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The thing is that capitalism wants to keep customer costs high for environmentally better products and services so they aren't the primary option in the illusion of choice given to people.
Who is this "capitalism" you are talking about? If with that you mean the general battlefield of the market, then you have a point. Of course there are people who want to keep the scales tipped in favour of the already established products. And of course the companies that produce them have connections to wealthy and powerful people. And of course that makes it harder for new product types to challenge the market. I agree with pretty much everything you wrote. Just one thing there: The choice is not an illusion. But you need to create part of the opportunity yourself. We are talking about a market here. And for participation on the market, you need the means to participate. I would guess that this is where you are coming from. Still, keeping people poor is not what is taking away the choice. It is a pretty complicated topic though, so I will stop here. Have my upvote in the meantime.
Yes it's more a 'what' not a 'who', although some status quo beneficiaries definitely have more sway, money is power after all in this system of hierarchy and authority. I almost wrote about the myth of the invisible hand but decided not to.
Point is that human behaviour is guided more by supply, not by demand. Which could bring about the topic where capitalism skews humanity to be greedier...
But thanks for the pondering and upboats
Have any more of those conspiracies where you are from? What else are "they" controlling?
Seriously right now the cost is higher because of economical scaling not being nearly as efficient with better products since there isn't enough demand.
Meat replacements got much cheaper in the last 5 years because they managed to scale better because more people kept buying them and they likely could go even cheaper but apparently people wouldn't trust replacements under a certain price point (but somehow they don't have a problem buying pork for even less money)
Could you explain the absurd high price of oat milk to me? I mean oat is cheap af, water is cheap af and the infrastructure to produce and package is already well established. But still, oat milk is compared to what it is insanely expensive...
If you look closely you'll see that investment firms like black rock, vanguard or staat street have their fingers in and in part control over almost all global companies. And evan without that fact - maximizing profits and growth - is kind of the main mantra of the global economy.
Saying scalability is the main factor for higher prices and capitalists controlling prices would be a conspiracy theory seams very shortsighted and, sorry, uneducated to me.
Great timing, now that people are already struggling...
the article states that they are only doing it on a select few products. it's more symbolic than a full-on protest
Things are only going to get worse if our species keeps going the way we have been.
Also this is only a single supermarket chain, it's not that hard to simply shop at a different supermarket that week.
And its only like 7 products.
Yeah don't put the costs on the billionaires and corporations or anything, just keep blaming the lower class and putting the cost on them.
german supermarkets are so fucking cool man. they also have an insanely wide selection of vegan products
Are the vegan products ridiculously expensive like they are here?
not at all, you can get a liter of oat milk for 70 cents in germany (~0.77 usd)
not at all, you can get a liter of oat milk for 70 cents in germany (~0.77 usd)