Environmentally responsible consumer choices are about to wildly transform the world’s largest industries

Something big is going on.

Ignore, if you can, the protests by Extinction Rebellion. Push aside the hypocrisy of actors who fly first class across the Atlantic to protest about carbon emissions. Forget about the billionaires who preach sustainability but are quite happy to keep their yachts. Focus instead on the way in which the great mass of ordinary people are gradually changing their habits in response to rising concerns about the environment.

We are all changing in little ways. We are trying to walk a bit more, rather than take the car or even a bus. Pushed by the government, we bring our own bags to the supermarket rather than pay for a plastic one. Some of us have started to try to take the train to the Continent rather than fly. And fewer of us are buying diesel cars.

This movement, now sweeping across western Europe and North America, is likely to spread outwards to the new middle classes of the emerging world – where, importantly, most global growth is coming from. Concern about the environment is one driver. The quest for quality and authenticity is another – fast fashion looks vulnerable on both counts there. And don’t forget that political forces will continue to lean in this direction, for there are more votes in being clean than being dirty.

So how will industry react? Actually we can already catch a glimpse of that, for like all sea changes that sweep across the world, this one creates winners as well as losers. Whatever you think of the giant multinational corporations, they are aware that to be successful they have to adapt to social change. If their customers want something – packaging that is kinder to the environment, for example – they know they have to provide it or see those customers go elsewhere. The thrust among the car manufacturers to go electric is the biggest current example of an industry turning itself upside down to meet a massive shift in customer preferences.

So where will the new frontiers be; the next areas of economic activity that will be transformed by changing consumer choices? There are three obvious ones.

First, food. We have already seen the anti-meat movement gather pace, and that will continue. For things to really change, however, there will have to be an anti-meat movement in the emerging world, and there does not seem much evidence of that. If 10 million Swedes were to eat less meat, that would have a modest impact on global demand. If 1.4 billion Chinese people were to do so, the impact would be huge. According to a study by the OECD and FAO, Chinese people are eating more meat than ever, and consumption is set to rise much further.

But, and this is important, if the west in general tends to cut meat consumption, eventually, you can expect that mood to shift elsewhere, probably including China.

Second, travel. Here, the great question is: what will make people travel less? Travel and tourism, taken together, is the world’s largest industry, accounting for between 10 per cent and 11 per cent of global GDP. Some may disagree but it has, I feel, been a force for good. By definition, it brings people together, and that cannot be bad. The airlines will continue to use more efficient planes and develop carbon offset opportunities. Trains and cars will continue to become more efficient too. But there are some areas of travel where economics may have a more dramatic impact, notably, commuting. Do people need to go to an office? Yes, yes of course, many do, but it is easy to see how technology is already reducing the need for many people to commute as frequently as they used to, and all at the same time. We do more work from home, and we have more varied working hours.

So the answer to the question posed above, is that it is technology that will enable people to travel less. Travel will become more of a chore of battling through the rush hour.

The third is distribution. There is another sea-change sweeping through the developed world, as we shift to shopping online instead of going to a high street or out-of-town store. In the UK, just under 20 per cent of goods, excluding fuel, are bought online.

Since this is moving so fast, most of the attention has been on the consequences for the high street, the demise of shopping chains and so on. The environmental aspect has been, to some extent, pushed aside.

On the face of it, it should take more energy to deliver to a home rather than a shop, but that does not take into account the energy used to travel to the shop, the errors in stocking from over-ordering, or the energy used in a supermarket vis-à-vis an out-of-town distribution centre.

At any rate, there are huge opportunities for greater efficiency in the whole distribution chain, and financial prizes to companies that deliver this.

There are many other examples of how the economic system is adapting to become more efficient. The big point here is that the pressure to do so will mount, and our economic system will respond to this, as it has to.