Advertising and overconsumption

With annual investments in Canada equivalent to Quebec's total education budget, and an influence that has boosted consumption in France and the United States by 5.3% and 7% respectively over 30 years, it's safe to say that advertising is having a massive impact.

The problem is that it leads to overconsumption — a phenomenon that exacerbates the climate crisis through extreme production of products, in ever greater contradiction with the limits of our natural resources.

What can we do to stop the machine? How can we use the powerful engine of advertising to promote healthy, sustainable and sober consumption? This new report focuses on the regulation of commercial advertising as a first step towards a potential paradigm shift.

Consumerism and materialism have been sold for years as an ideal to attain. It is time to sell people on a different lifestyle, one that respects our planet’s boundaries.

Read to:

• Understand the influence of advertising on over-consumption and its impact on the climate crisis;

• Deconstruct the advertising mechanisms that encourage unsustainable lifestyles and learn about the alternatives for reversing the narrative;

• Discover Équiterre's recommendations to better control advertising messages and steer our consumption patterns in the right direction.