Green Friday: French companies shun mass consumerism on Black Friday

Everyone’s heard of Black Friday, a shopping phenomenon that hails from the United States, taking place on the Friday following Thanksgiving. Retailers slash prices, hoping to give their pre-Christmas sales a boost, however not everyone is happy about the push towards mass consumerism. That’s where Green Friday comes in.

Department store shoppers during Black Friday sales in New York, United States. Reuters

180 French companies and NGOs are participating in this year’s Green Friday initiative, a movement designed to raise awareness about the effect of mass consumerism on the environment and to promote sustainable solutions.

It was launched in France in 2017 by a French association called Envie, which repairs broken appliances. This year, the initiative has the support of the Paris town hall which has set aside 40,000 euros to support the effort.

"The idea is not to make people feel guilty," says Anemone Beres, the president of Envie as reported in the French press. "We are not anti-consumerism, but we don’t want to see compulsive buying which is what Black Friday invites us to do.

"Over consuming is completely unreasonable," she continues. "We can buy things without being wasteful."

The companies have promised not put any of their products on sale on Green Friday and they will donate 15 percent of their sales to a sustainable development organisation.

Altermundi, whose slogan is “open up to a sustainable world”, is one of those companies participating. It sells clothes and homewares, by brands made in France.

Managing director Thomas Ringo told RFI that the move has been welcomed by his customers.

“Built-in obsolescence is having a terrible impact on the environment” he says, explaining that Altermundi is donating its 15 percent of sales on Black Friday to HOP - l'Association Halte à l’obsolescence programmée or “Stop Planned Obsolescence”.

In industrial design and economics planned obsolescence is a policy of planning or designing a product with an artificially limited useful life, so it will become obsolete (unfashionable or no longer functional) after a certain period of time.

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Thomas Ringo, managing director of Altermundi

RFI

Make instead of buy

Other groups participating in the move, such as Emmaus and Dream Act are organising repair workshops and do-it-yourself workshops in Paris to show consumers that there are alternatives for their broken appliances, used clothing and objects.

Similar events have been organised elsewhere in France (Brittany, Lyon) on Friday under the banner www.greenfriday.fr.

Greenpeace and partners are holding the MAKE SMTHNG Week (November 23 – December 2). With more than, 273 events in 38 countries, MAKE SMTHNG Week asks people to #BuyNothing and #MakeSmthng instead.

“MAKE SMTHNG Week offers a fun and creative way out of this wasteful consumerism,” said Robin Perkins, #MAKESMTHNG campaigner at Greenpeace.

“Shopping does not make us happy. But being with friends and people, learning new skills, and valuing what we already have, does. So this Black Friday, buy nothing and make something!” says Perkins.

Events include making sustainable Christmas presents, living a plastic-free life, community repair cafes, books and clothes swaps, and zero waste cooking.

Black Friday protests

Environmental activists dumped mounds of broken electronics, appliances and other waste at the French headquarters of American e-commerce giant Amazon on Friday, accusing it of encouraging over-consumption while falling short on recycling.

Around 40 people converged on the company's offices in the northern Paris suburb of Clichy to dump washing machines, old computer screens, tangles of power cords and other items to coincide with the busy "Black Friday" holiday sale.

"We're accusing Amazon in particular of violating the law by not putting in place a system for collecting electronics and recycling them properly. It's a waste of resources," Alma Dufour of Friends of the Earth told AFP.

"The business model of the second-largest retailer of electronics in France is based on runaway over-consumption," Dufour said.

"They offer cut-rate prices and offer delivery that gets faster and faster, something that isn't compatible with climate change targets," she added.

Amazon workers in Spain, Germany and the UK went on strike on Friday, calling for better working conditions under the hashtag #Amazonwearenotrobots.