The doxa, today, is to promote, in all sectors of production, the use of so-called "eco-friendly", "sustainable", green, carbon neutral materials and semi-products, etc. Each and every day, matériO' gets questions about new selections in our material library which would be more responsible, less “impactful”. We now ban bad, wicked plastics made from wicked oil, we, of course, have a preference for bio-sourced plastic (necessarily better, right?), and more, if using a polymer can be avoided, we choose a cellulose material such as paper or cardboard, and finally we braid laurels for natural materials, some even reinvent flax, abaca or nettle fiber, straw or rammed earth, presented as major innovations. In short, we categorise and classify the different families of materials, which is reassuring, following a sort of eco-score decreed by the general rule of "the more natural, the better, the more synthetic the more suspicious", all fueled by a simplistic, Manichean yet omnipresent marketing discourse.

    It is comforting, of course, we then have the impression of working in the right direction, of starting to repair a sickly world, but we are only perpetuating the utopia of a society that could continue to prosper with the same engines, the same operation, the same economic logic. A world where continued growth would be possible, a world where it would be enough to produce better and consume better to get out of danger. This is evidence of double blindness, or double denial:
• On the one hand, the idea of a possible segmentation (the mentionned "eco-score") between good and bad materials is a lure, which does not last more than two seconds in regards to the complexity of our societies, our modes of operation and the diversity of productions and achievements. Materials are not good or bad, but their use more or less pertinent, which is totally different.
• And, above all, the actual problem of scale, because producing millions of T-shirts in organic cotton rather than polyester, printing packaging with algae-based ink and biochar, making store shelves out of compressed waste rather than PMMA will not do anything to solve the environmental crisis, which is of a completely different magnitude. It’s a bit as if we wanted to scoop out the many floods we face with a simple thimble, which also has holes in it.

    So, of course, we could tell ourselves, like good little hummingbirds, that doing less harm is already better than nothing, for sure... But let's be clear-headed for a bit, the frantic race towards clean, "carbon neutral" production does nothing to answer the overarching issue of overproduction and overconsumption. A trivial example: replacing two billion gasoline vehicles with two billion electric vehicles is, first of all, physically impossible, and would actually be environmentally catastrophic.

    Above all, and without seeking malice, one of the goals of this famous doxa is also to relieve us from guilt about the exploitation of resources and the act of purchasing, it is an attempt at making production justifiable and consumption desirable, to the extend that certain discourses which promote the supposed environmental qualities of a particular material or product could almost give us the feeling that it does good for our planet, which would be laughable if it wasn't so dangerous.

   Let us prioritize sobriety and the reduction of resource usage, let us care, above all, about the relevance of a project before a simple choice of "sustainable" materials, because the promises that come with more "virtuous" production on an industrial scale are, unfortunately, only lies: by aiming solely at the preservation of an economic system, or even the repair of our planet through technology, industrial societies truly take part in an approach that is ontologically deadly for the environment.