In recent years, sustainable development and environmental protection had come under hot discussion among the public. But sometimes, the phrase may be in a negative meaning that differ from its purpose.

In the beginning, not many people pay attention to environmental protection, even though they may have heard of some related topics, they do not care about them since it seems far from our lives. But then, our lives are forced to change as different industries come up with more sustainable commodities such as paper straw, recycled goods, and simplified packaging. Environmental protection soon became a key to pop out in various industries. Bloggers and YouTubers starts to promote green products and a vegetarian diet. All of these trends seemed nice, but some questionable points behind these behaviors raised people’s suspects and react against what they are promoting. Environmental protection, more specifically, the ways people do for protection gradually became controversial.

The main reason that some people do not believe in those who call for environmental protection is they suspect whether they are truly taking action to protect the environment. It’s about common sense nowadays that the environment is truly changing in a negative meaning. Everyone knows and can feel this fact. Glacier melt, forest fires, abnormally high temperature, no one can ignore the worsening of the environment. We are just in a dilemma of selecting to do some change for the environment on the moral side or enjoy the best on the desired side. To push the tendency toward the latter, more actual and valid information should be provided, for example, how much positive impact is paper straw for reducing package making on the environment? Some luxury brands promote their products by labeling them green and eco-friendly, but the carbon emission behind can never be so-called “green”. Some smartphone industries improved their products by removing the audio jacks and the chargers. Are they improving the products in order to reduce the package and protect the environment, or are their purpose actually to raise people’s need of purchasing another product? People do accept the purpose of some new products that claim to protect the environment, but they hesitate when they raise suspicions of merchants planning for their own interest.

Environmental protection is not a performance, it is not the tool to raise the popularity of commodities. Many people are not taking it seriously because we’ve seen too many such slogans in our lives but do not see the sincere actions taken by the environmentalists. In order to effectively call for environmental action, we should transparently demonstrate sustainable management and efforts to restore the environment. Environmental protection coordinates people and bring about sustainable development along with technology innovation.