As promised in today's class, here's the "corrigé" I did for the text we looked at earlier. I want to stress that it's not a "perfect" translation (even if I'm quite pleased with it!) - I'm only posting it so you can see some of the ideas we didn't come up with in today's lesson.
Enjoy your week off, and see you on 22 Mar for your first DST.
Caroline Sallé, Le Figaro, 28 March 2011. "French people want to buy useful produce" Note: there are many appropriate translations of “utiles” – I suggest we accept, among others, ‘useful’, ‘necessary’, ‘essential’, ‘basic’…
Le Figaro Magazine – Has the crisis wiped out French people’s interest in sustainable development?
Elisabeth Laville – Contrary to expectations it hasn’t reversed the trend towards responsible consumption. Sales of organic and fairtrade produce are still rising – admittedly in slightly lower proportions (organic sales turnover increased by 10% in 2010) – but local production, shorter distribution circuits, second-hand goods and renting rather than buying are all riding high. When it comes down to it, French people want to consume less unnecessary produce and more of what’s useful.
Green consumers are mainly women. Evidence for this is that women’s organic-produce buying continued to increase in 2010, whilst men’s reduced considerably. Most are well-educated – as you need to be, to find your way round the various offers and the jungle of labels! Although big supermarkets and hypermarkets have recently made responsible consumption available to a much wider public, green consumers still belong to the wealthiest classes. What’s on offer for responsible consumers is often the highest quality, so it’s often the most expensive too.
Responsible consumption is advancing, yet you get the impression it’s making no positive impact on the planet...
The main problem at the global level is that the increase in quantities consumed more than compensates for any progress made. It takes 30% less resources than 30 years ago to produce the same amount of GDP; meanwhile our consumption of natural resources has increased by 50%. For instance today’s cell phones are only a fifth the weight of the earliest mobiles on the market; but obviously in the meantime sales have rocketed, with 3 billion phones sold in 2009 and less than 1% of them recycled.
