The Green Craze Is the new trend environmentally-conscious?
Over the past few years, Western society has emphasized the importance of taking care of the environment. From providing access to volunteering opportunities, introducing ecological education in schools and adopting legislative projects such as the Green Deal in the European Union, everybody seemed to be consumed by the need to take care of our planet. Micro-trends such as veganism, replacing gas-powered vehicles with electric ones and slapping a sustainable sticker on every product on the market are now daily truths. The question is, however, are these efforts really directed towards the conservation of our precious resources or is this simply a smoke-screen to distract the masses from what’s going on behind closed doors? This article aims to draw attention to what might be the true effect of recent environmental policies, particularly in the EU space.
Green dreams and veto schemes?
Perhaps one of the most widely known and encouraged initiatives has been the transition from gas-powered cars to electric vehicles. Europe seems to not be able to get enough of them: brands like BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen and even Dacia have come out with stylish, sleek and affordable electric vehicles. Places like Bucharest, Milan and Paris started offering concessions to EV owners by either subsidizing parking prices, making them free altogether or providing other benefits (Babled, 2024; Comune di Milano website; Lupu, 2016). Their silent engines have become more attractive as well, especially in urban settings where noise pollution has become a nuisance on people’s daily lives.
Other policies adopted at a Union level include the European Green Deal, Natura 2000 and Deposit Return Systems (DRS), which at first glance seem to be doing wonders. The DRS incentivizes consumers to return-single use beverage plastic and glass containers by adding a deposit to the purchase price, refunded to the consumer upon return (TOMRA, 2023). DRS seems to be working wonders. Within its first year in Romania, the program registered over 200,000 tons of sorted and processed containers, marking significant progress towards recycling in a country not known for being too environmentally-savvy (Romania-Insider, 2024). Perhaps the most ambitious of these environmental policies has been the EU Green Deal, a comprehensive package of strategies that aims to turn the EU economy into a climate-neutral one by 2050. This climate neutrality includes achieving net-zero greenhouse emissions by 2050, promoting sustainable economic growth without increasing resource consumption and inclusivity, so that no economy is left behind in the race towards transition (European Commission).
These ideals sound great on paper and promise a green utopia that nobody can disagree with (apart from, maybe, some oil giants who will see their European market fractioned and dismembered). Nevertheless, is this utopia sustainable? Or is this another case of catering towards the strongest European veto players and leaving small actors behind in the dust? Do all EU countries have what it takes to realistically make a change and align with these goals?
Green on the outside, grimy on the inside
Despite the fact that they’re marketed as being an environmentally-friendly alternative, EVs hide some pretty grim effects on the environment. The production of lithium-ion batteries, essential for electric vehicles, is energy intensive and significantly contributes to greenhouse gas emissions. As an example, manufacturing an 80-kWh battery, a similar one to Tesla’s Model 3, can produce between 2.6 and 16 metric tons of CO2, depending on the energy sources one uses during production. Based on this example, building an EV can result in approximately 80% more emissions than producing a comparable gasoline-powered car (MIT Climate, 2022). And batteries are the least of our concerns, even when they sound so menacing. The European Environment Agency forecasts that the constant growth in electric vehicles in the U-28 countries will raise the demand for electricity consumption from 0.03% in 2014 to 9.5% in 2050 (European Environment Agency, 2021). It is reasonable to question how an increase of more than a 31.000% in EU demand can be supported by the current power grid, with detrimental outliers such as eastern European countries which tend to have older appliances, as a whole.
The tango of truth: dancing through the data dump
Being in tune with the Earth and taking care of our resources is a cool thing to do. TikTok and the EU government seem to agree and keep pushing this agenda any chance they can get. However, in today’s society in which we are subject to rapid-fire non-stop information being dumped to us, it is hard to discern right from wrong, truth from lie. After years upon years of depleting natural resources, change for the better is more than welcome. Conversely, the one factor that can make or break the way the planet’s resources are preserved is the way one frames the effort towards sustainability and green energy.
References
Babled A., 2024 : https://www.beev.co/en/blog/electric-cars/stationnement-voiture-electrique/?
Commune di Milano website : https://www.comune.milano.it/en/aree-tematiche/mobilita/sosta/sosta-gratuita-per-le-auto-elettriche?
European Commission: https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-2019-2024/european-green-deal_en?
European Environment Agency, 2021: https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/electric-vehicles-and-the-energy/electric-vehicles-and-energy?
Lupu V., 2016: https://www.romaniajournal.ro/society-people/hybrid-and-electric-car-owners-free-parking-in-bucharest/?
MIT Climate, 2022: https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/are-electric-vehicles-definitely-better-climate-gas-powered-cars?
Romania Insider, 2024: https://www.romania-insider.com/returo-one-year-since-launch-largest-circular-economy-project-romania?
TOMRA, 2023: https://www.tomra.com/reverse-vending/media-center/news/2023/deposit-return-scheme-launch-romania?
