Can you buy sustainability?

Let me introduce you to my friend Lars.

Lars is an ex-Wall-Street-trader-turned-organic-pig-farmer. He used to live in New York, but now the place he calls home is a 100 acre patch of Southwestern Wisconsin. I think one of the reasons that Lars and I have always gotten along so well is that both of us can really appreciate and enjoy the benefits of a hyper-connected urban lifestyle as well as the joy of living on a pig farm in what most people would consider the middle of nowhere.

I live in Boston now, but before I moved to this big[-ish] city on the East Coast, I lived on a farm -- yes, with cows -- that happened to belong to Lars's Aunt and Uncle, Dawn and Vince. Just for the record, I like living in Boston, but I loved living on a farm. No joke. Normally when I say this, especially in a place like Boston, people look at me a little funny.

Anyway, I bring all of this up because last week, while I was looking into environmentally-oriented initiatives in Somerville, MA, I got to thinking about some of the differences between how "sustainability" is defined in an urban environment vs. in a rural one.

Sure, it makes sense that people in different places would understand things in different ways, especially considering the cavernous divide between rural lifestyles and urban ones. However, I think there is more at stake here than simply dissimilar ways of life or contrasting applications of the same idea. [If you'll bear with me for just a moment, as I make a couple of sweeping generalizations] I think there are some fundamental differences in the way that sustainability is conceptualized. In my next few posts, I'll try to articulate how.

My first question: Is sustainability something you can buy?

Living in an urban environment in the U.S. - surrounded by seemingly limitless consumer options and lots of people with loads of money - it's easy to get the feeling that you can simply purchase anything that you need, including, presumably, a greener existence. Don't have time to walk your dog? No problem; hire someone to walk him for you. No time to cook yourself a healthy dinner made from local organic ingredients? Order take out. Don't have time to grow your own organic tomatoes? Hit up Whole Foods.

In rural environments there are, simply, fewer options. There probably isn't a Whole Foods, or fair trade organic Starbucks coffee, or a dog walking company, for that matter. If you want to avoid pesticide-covered tomatoes imported from industrial farms in Mexico, you might have to grow them yourself. You have to change your behavior; this is inconvenient, but there really isn't any other option.

In urban environments, we're lucky; we have options. Companies are doing all they can to provide greener and greener goods, giving consumers the option to "vote with their dollar" showing support for one green product or sustainable business over another. Consumers have the power to make conscious decisions about where and from who they purchase their goods. While this is definitely a positive step, when I talk to someone like Lars, I can't help but wonder if this urban mentality of sustainability-for-purchase is just a little too easy, a little too convenient, a little too trendy.

When surrounded by "green" marketing campaigns and advertisements for "eco" products it's easier just to pick one - presumably the "environmentally friendly" option that comes in well-designed green and brown recycled packaging - then to do without.

Does the proliferation of eco-industries provide a way for us to feel better about our lifestyle choices while, basically, continuing to live the same [unsustainable] way we've been living? I guess the question I'm really trying to ask is that, if consumerism and its mantra of planned obsolescence is, to some degree, what got us into this mess, why is it that we believe the marketing that tells us that the solution is simply buying more, newer, greener stuff?