26 Quotes by John Elkington

I became a vegetarian 55 years ago, and I think it's one of the more important behavioral changes I ever took. The more I see of the beef industry and so on, I believe that to be true.

I’m worried about greenwashing. I think we should come down on it very, very hard, whether it’s with criminal intent or actively deceptive.

What people say often precedes what they think. Some people sometimes say, “I have to hear myself talk before I know what I think.” I think language sometimes, because it opens new channels, it opens new doors, is enormously important.

The biggest weakness of the green-consumer movement, always, is that we tend to pick the easy-to-do things because that’s where we can most readily engage people. It doesn’t cost them very much to switch products or whatever it happens to be.

I think consumerism breeds dissatisfaction, and I think that the advertisers play to that. So I cannot be comfortable with that. On the other hand, the cornucopia of products and innovation – I love Apple, for example. That’s a temple of consumerism in many ways.

I became a vegetarian 55 years ago, and I think it’s one of the more important behavioral changes I ever took. The more I see of the beef industry and so on, I believe that to be true.

I’m part of the consumer culture. I was part of the baby boom generation. I have a car when I shouldn’t, a couple of computers; I can’t be anti-consumerist in that sense.

I think people often underestimate the power of consumers. But I equally say that consumers are like shock troops: You can’t keep them agitated and motivated and committed and active forever. There are pulses where they switch on to a particular issue, and just inevitably they switch off.