You go into a store to buy a work jacket. It is available in navy blue, dark blue, medium blue, light blue, sea blue, gray blue, blue black, cobalt blue, steel blue and sky blue. It comes in a number of green, yellow, rose-red shades. In addition, each color is available in five sizes. If the particular shade you want is out of stock, you may leave the store empty-handed, even though there are several almost identical jackets hanging a few meters away.
We have learned that this is freedom. The more choices we have, the better society must function. But what if the opposite is true? Imagine if some of the sustainability problems of our time actually arise because we try to give everyone the opportunity to choose exactly everything, all the time.
It’s an uncomfortable thought. Because freedom of choice is one of the most valued concepts in modern societies. At the same time, both psychological research and sustainability research are beginning to point towards the same paradox. More choices don’t always make us happier, and they almost always make our production systems more resource-intensive.
Research on what is usually called “choice overload” shows that too many options can make decisions more difficult, reduce the propensity to buy and lead to lower satisfaction with the choice we ultimately make. For example, the classic jam experiment by Sheena Iyengar and Mark Lepper showed that more people stopped at a table with twenty-four types of jam, but significantly more actually made a purchase when only six options were offered. Later research shows that the effect varies depending on the situation and type of choice, but that too much choice often increases the mental load and makes decision-making more difficult.
It may therefore be time to ask a new question. Not how we can give people more choices, but how we can create better choices.
Freedom of choice has an invisible price
When we talk about freedom of choice, we almost always think of the consumer. We rarely think about all that is required for freedom of choice to exist. Behind each color variant is its own production series. Behind each size are warehousing, transport, quality controls and forecasts. Each combination must be produced, distributed and sometimes discarded.
This is where the real cost arises. Not in the choice itself, but in all the possibilities that must be available before the choice can even be made.
Imagine a company that offers work clothes. If each garment is available in ten colors, five sizes and three different models, for example pants, jacket and sweater, and the company wants ten copies of each combination in stock, the calculation is simple.
Ten colors multiplied by five sizes, three garments and ten copies gives a stock of 1,500 garments. If the company instead offers three colors, the same calculation becomes 450 garments. The difference is therefore 1,050 garments that never need to be produced, transported, stored or risk being unsold, and this for only 10 copies in stock.
That difference arises, not because people buy fewer clothes, but because the number of possible combinations decreases dramatically.
This simple example shows how a seemingly small change in freedom of choice can have very large consequences for material consumption, energy use, inventory costs, transport and capital tied up. And work clothes are just one of countless examples where the same logic applies.
The perfect color is often the biggest problem
But there is an even more interesting possibility. What if we don’t even require the exact right color?
In today’s production, large amounts of material are discarded because the result deviates marginally from the specification. A shade of blue will be a little darker than planned. A fabric takes on a slightly different tone depending on the raw material or dyeing process. A wooden surface gets a unique pattern. A stone slab is a little different from the others.
In many cases this is considered wrong. But is it really? If the work jacket is bluish instead of exactly the defined blue color, does it really affect its function? If the answer is no, a whole new opportunity opens up. We can begin to accept natural variations instead of fighting them. This reduces waste, energy use and the need for re-production. Suddenly, sustainability becomes not only a technical issue but also a cultural issue.
From perfection to variety
Nature does not work through perfection. It works through variation. No forest consists of identical trees. No stone looks exactly the same as another. No two leaves are exactly the same shape. Nevertheless, we experience nature as harmonious and beautiful.
Industrial society, on the other hand, has trained us to appreciate identical products. The same color, the same structure, the same surface finish and the same appearance have become synonymous with quality. But perhaps this is an ideal that has become far too expensive to maintain.
If instead we start to see small variations as quality rather than errors, the entire production logic changes. Uniqueness will no longer be a mistake. It becomes a characteristic. A product does not have to be identical to all others to be perceived as well thought out or well made. On the contrary, variation can become a sign that resources have been used wisely instead of nature being forced to adapt to our perfect specifications.
When the resources are allowed to set the rules of the game
For a long time, the market has assumed that the consumer’s wishes should always guide production. But in a world with limited resources, the order may need to be reversed. Not by taking away people’s freedom, but by letting the limitations of resources become part of the design.
We already accept today that certain foods are only available during certain parts of the year. We accept that electricity prices vary depending on availability and that water sometimes needs to be saved during dry summers. Why couldn’t the same logic apply to more products?
If a certain fabric is in excess, we may choose it over a fabric that requires new production. If a certain color is already available, it may become the standard of the season. Not because someone banned other options, but because the resources already point out the smartest way. In this way, nature’s limitations do not become an obstacle to innovation, but part of the innovation process.
Creativity through limitation
Many believe that creativity requires unlimited choices. But research and experience often show the opposite. Creativity often flourishes when there are clear frameworks. A poet does not become less creative by writing a sonnet with fixed rules. An architect does not become less creative by working with a limited budget. A designer does not become less creative by using recycled materials.
On the contrary, it is often the limitations that force us to think anew. If resources instead become the starting point for design, new questions arise. How can we make something beautiful out of the material that already exists? How can we create products that accept variation? How can we design for flexibility instead of perfection? These are questions that open up innovation rather than limit it.
Another way of looking at consumption
The interesting thing is that this also changes the relationship between consumer and product. Instead of looking for exactly the right product, we start choosing from what actually exists. It may at first be experienced as a deterioration, but it can also create something unexpected.
When people are no longer chasing the perfect variant, decision stress is reduced. The research on choice overload points to exactly this. When the number of options becomes very large, the mental load increases. People hesitate more, postpone decisions and are often less satisfied even when they have made a good choice. At the same time, the research shows that the connection is not simple. Too few options can also feel limiting. The challenge is therefore not to eliminate freedom of choice, but to find a level where the choices feel meaningful without becoming overwhelming.
From a sustainability perspective, there is also another advantage. When we accept that we don’t always get exactly what we thought, we also begin to appreciate what we actually get. It is a subtle but important cultural shift that shifts the focus from perfection to usability and from consumption to value creation.
From mass production to resource production
Perhaps the production of the future needs to be organized in a completely different way. Today, we often produce based on forecasts of what people might want. Tomorrow we might produce based on what resources are actually available.
This does not mean that the quality will be lower. This means that quality is defined in a new way. High quality may no longer mean identical products. High quality may instead mean that a product uses as few resources as possible while fulfilling its purpose. It is a different way of thinking about design and a significantly more system-oriented way of looking at sustainability.
A new balance between man and system
Systems thinking is about understanding that every decision affects many other parts of the system. When we demand maximum freedom of choice, it affects production, transport, storage, energy, materials and waste. When we instead accept certain limitations, resources are freed up in many places at the same time.
It is therefore not just about consumption. It is about how the entire system is organized. Innovation is then not just about creating more options. Innovation is creating smarter alternatives where people’s needs are balanced against the planet’s limited resources.
When the unique becomes the normal
Perhaps the biggest change is not technological but cultural. For a long time, we have been trained to see variety as a sign of a lack of quality. But imagine if the quality seal of the future is instead that each product bears traces of the resource that created it. That the wood looks like wood. That the stone looks like stone. That the fabric gets the shade that the raw material naturally gave. That the work jacket is blue, but not necessarily exactly the same blue as the one next to it.
It’s really a strange ideal. Because we accept people’s differences without demanding perfect copies. Why shouldn’t we be able to do the same with the things we manufacture?
Perhaps this is precisely where the sustainable consumption of the future begins. Not by consuming less out of compulsion, but by changing what we value. When the resources are allowed to help guide our choices, sustainability no longer becomes a sacrifice. It becomes a new way of thinking about quality, creativity and freedom.
And maybe the real freedom is not being able to choose between ten almost identical shades of blue. Perhaps the real freedom of living in a society where resources last longer is because we have learned to appreciate what already exists.
