The Cost of Sustainability

This project aims to look at a defined ‘average’ person in different economic classes, located in both rural and urban environments, and examine the costs and benefits of switching to a sustainable lifestyle. Beginning with the cost of switching to brands that are recognized as sustainable and the costs incurred by switching from shopping at non-sustainable stores to stores that are recognized as sustainable; I hope to be able to start answering questions like “What are the (possible) social consequences, both positive and negative? Is it cheaper or more expensive to be sustainable? Does this increase or decrease in cost change over different predetermined time periods? Can switching to a sustainable lifestyle be viewed as an investment? What would the environmental impact of people switching be? Are the social/economic/environmental impacts bigger or smaller in rural vs urban areas? Red vs Blue areas? Is there a difference in impact among different economic classes of people?” Also, assuming that one social consequence of people switching to a sustainable lifestyle is an increase of other people doing so, this project would also like to determine if there is a threshold of people switching to a sustainable lifestyle at which it becomes cheaper.