Coinciding with the unofficial start of the Christmas shopping season, Buy Nothing Day aims to challenge people to spend a day without making a purchase. It also serves as an opportunity for organisers to expose the environmental and ethical consequences of over-consumption.
Buy Nothing Day was the idea of Kalle Lasn, one of the co-founders of anti-advertising activist group Adbusters. It is Lasn who has been largely responsible for turning the day into an international anti-consumerist event.
Lasn said: "Our headlong plunge into ecological collapse requires a profound shift in the way we see things. Driving hybrid cars and limiting industrial emissions is great, but they are band-aid solutions if we don't address the core problem: we have to consume less. This is the message of Buy Nothing Day."
The campaign targets affluent people -- the upper 20% who consume 80% of the world's resources -- by encouraging them to start a lasting lifestyle commitment to consuming less and producing less waste.
Film nights, conferences, workshops and public theatre have been planned for the event, which is expected to attract thousands of activists and concerned citizens from 65 countries. Consumers will also be encouraged to join credit zombie marches through shopping centres, credit card cut-outs and shopaholic clinics.
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