The Metal Straw: The Individualization of Environmental Activism and its Consequences on Meaningful Climate Action and Water Activism

A post by Juan Pendavis

Research and Academia Consultant at The AWA Project

Between 2004 and 2006, fossil fuel company British Petroleum (BP) hired advertising, marketing, and public relations firm Ogilvy to promote and popularize the term “carbon footprint”. Attached to this cultural campaign BP rolled out a “carbon footprint calculator” where you could asses how your daily life, be it work, leisure, transportation, food, etc. was causing climate change, effectively letting you know of your individual responsibility in causing environmental collapse by having taken that one trip to the Bahamas during your vacations.

The individualization or atomization of ecological and environmental impact has historically effectively served as a tool for these “interested parties” to obfuscate the scale of their impact, existing environmental issues, and necessary action by shifting blame and responsibility from them, representatives of the systematic, to the individual or household level. This strategy has only grown with time and effectively preyed upon the hubris of aspiring activists and their thirst to make a difference by peddling individualized solutions that serve more purpose as a self-gratifying action and a social signifier of virtue than as an effective environmental activism strategy. Nowadays we see everything from metal straws to save the turtles, bottles in toilet tanks to save on flushing, to reusable tote bags in supermarkets to shrink the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

And yet, with all this, little to no change is produced. Let's take a look at water as a relevant example due to the scope and interest of AWA. According to the 2024 UN World Water Development Report, none of the SDG 6 targets appear to be on track. 2.2 billion people live without access to safely managed drinking water, 3.5 billion live without access to safely managed sanitation services, global domestic consumption has skyrocketed to over 4 trillion cubic meters a year, and contaminants in water bodies, including pharmaceuticals, hormones, industrial chemicals, detergents, cyanotoxins, and nanomaterials, becoming an issue of concern in all regions around the globe.

And all of this is not even touching food and agriculture. Agriculture, for those unaware, accounts for 70% of all global freshwater withdrawals. According to an Oxfam 2024 report, only 28% of the biggest and most influential global food and agriculture corporations, consisting of more than half of the world’s food and agriculture revenue, are committing to or reporting a reduction in their water withdrawals, with only 23% explicitly stating that they are taking direct action to reduce water pollution.

The fact of the matter is that it is crucial to understand the magnitude and scale of how water issues will affect not just our daily lives, but the collective global human experience if meaningful change concerning the aforementioned issues is not produced. Half of the world’s population could be living in areas facing water scarcity by as early as 2025, and not just that, some 700 million people could be displaced by intense water scarcity by 2030. By 2040, around 1 in 4 children worldwide will be living in areas experiencing extremely high water stress.

The picture being painted if you will, is that water activism, just like any other form of environmental activism, must be tailored to the systematic and grand scope of its issue if it is to make an impact. It requires a shift from the individualized culture of atomized activism to collective action and a focus on the institutions with the capacity to create meaningful change on a collective and systematic level, be it local, regional, or national governments, private companies, etc. through organization and direct action. This should not be misinterpreted as an attack on those who use metal straws, bottles in toilet tanks, hemp tote bags, etc. These all can be honorable individual approaches to minimize the effect of one’s own habits upon the environment. Yet one cannot confuse this for effective activism or internalize the practice through a savior complex. One does not create meaningful change, especially on a systematic scale, with the figurative metal straw, but through organization, activism, and collective action.

The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The AWA Project.