**5.2. Creating hope and action with words: "If you are a part of the problem, you are a part of the solution"**

This formulation illustrates constructive, sustainable thinking [9]. We are talking about "enlightened self interest": A common problem must be solved by common efforts. This requires a "precautionary ethic" about what is morally right or wrong in a long term perspec‐ tive. The *Local Agenda* perspective from Rio in 1992 placed a responsibility on all local com‐ munities through the slogan "Think globally and act locally". For instance, in Norway, several municipalities were inspired to present themselves as "environmentally friendly municipali‐ ties", and prizes were given to industry, companies, schools etc. which actively showed environmental responsibility by reducing pollution, wastes, energy consumption, etc. Some institutions were acknowledged as "environmental lighthouses": as examples for others to navigate by. Some measures are "win-win situations": for instance reducing costs by reducing energy consumption. In fact, sustainable practices could be regarded as a "public service", since they serve our common future [9].

On the personal level, it has been argued for "the good life" with reduced consumption, under the vision of "voluntary simplicity" [7]. This is "the responsible consumer", who practices a "sustainable lifestyle" through "ecological choices". If numerous enough, responsible con‐ sumers may achieve "consumer power". For instance, the water quality of Norway's largest lake Mjøsa was saved in the 1970's through a coordinated effort: consumers agreed to stop buying phosphate-containing detergents, and farmers (with economic support) stopped the run off from leaky manure storage cellars. Another example is how environmentally conscious consumers in Europe have forced forestry in Norway, Sweden and Finland to reduce logging in virgin forests of high biodiversity value. Today, large companies like Springer Verlag and IKEA dare not buy paper or wooden products originating from Nordic virgin forest. To practice this, they have to trace the origin of the wooden products, and Nordic Forestry has been obliged to undergo an "environmental certification" to document a "green profile". A part of their duty is to identify biologically important forests by means of sensible "indicator organisms", and if so-called "key habitats" are cut, forest owners may lose their certificate and the possibility to sell the timber. Only within this forestry example, a number of new concepts were developed in order to agree upon aims, principles and control mechanisms. But behind it all stand environmentally conscious European consumers, kept together by "the responsible consumer"-rhetoric. Conclusively, we all matter.
