Tell me how you treat your leftovers and I will tell you if you are ecocentric or anthropocentric 😅🌍 🇲🇽🌮 ♻️ 🇺🇸🍔 🗑️ 🇳🇱🥪 📦 🇿🇦🍲 ⚖️ 🇬🇧🍽️
Fiona van Iersel
MSc Marketing — King's College London
Module: Marketing Sustainability and Ethics (7QQMO509X)
Date: 16 January 2026
https://keats.kcl.ac.uk/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=803056

Tell me how you treat your leftovers and I will tell you if you are ecocentric or anthropocentric 😅🌍 🇲🇽🌮 ♻️ 🇺🇸🍔 🗑️ 🇳🇱🥪 📦 🇿🇦🍲 ⚖️ 🇬🇧🍽️
Submitted: 16 January 2026 7:56 PM

If my views on ecocentrism and anthropocentrism were my family at the dinner table, it would be very loud, slightly chaotic about discussions over leftovers. The Americans would want to throw them away, the Dutch would save them for tomorrows work lunch, and the Mexican person would turn them into a completely different dish and somehow make it better and stretch farther to invite more people to dinner.

Growing up between Mexico, the United States, the Netherlands, South Africa, and now living in the United Kingdom, I did not develop one clear environmental worldview. I developed several, shaped by culture, generation, and necessity. Some of them are deeply ecocentric, some unapologetically anthropocentric, and some extremely good at adapting depending on context.

Mexico is where my strongest ecocentric values come from, and they are rooted in Indigenous knowledge systems, including those of my non-biological mother. In these worldviews, nature has inherent value and is understood as something humans belong to, not something they dominate. This aligns closely with ecocentrism as defined in environmental ethics and Indigenous environmental philosophy (Whyte, 2018).

In Mexico, making a little go a long way is not framed as sustainability or sacrifice. It is simply common sense. A yogurt pot is reused as a cup, then for soap, then for storage, and eventually as a plant pot. Waste is avoided not because of environmental guilt, but because there are more important things in life. Time with people. Family. Community. Human relationships matter far more than material accumulation. Studies on Latin American consumption patterns show that lower material throughput often coexists with stronger social cohesion rather than lower wellbeing (UNEP, 2020).

Mexico also takes immense pride in its land, biodiversity, and food systems. While the introduction of NAFTA increased exposure to American consumer culture and material excess, Mexico has held on tightly to its core values, nail and tooth, and with pride (Wise, 2019). Ecocentrism here is not theoretical. It is cultural identity.

By contrast, the United States shaped my anthropocentric side very efficiently. Everything is designed around human comfort, convenience, and speed. Big vehicles, constant air conditioning, disposable plates and cutlery at every gathering. Nature exists, but mostly as a backdrop once human needs are met. This reflects a strongly anthropocentric worldview where nature is valued primarily for its usefulness to humans (Oxford Reference, 2024). I will admit, guiltily, that it felt incredibly easy. Anthropocentrism works very well when you are the one being centred.

From the Netherlands, influenced by my Dutch grandmother and my baby boomer father, I learned a far more pragmatic approach. Nature is respected because it must be. When your country exists only through careful environmental management, ignoring ecological limits is not an option. Dutch sustainability practices emphasize efficiency, reuse, and long-term planning, aligning with what the Global Reporting Initiative describes as systems-based sustainability rather than moral framing (GRI, 2023).

South Africa added another critical layer to my understanding. Nature is powerful, present, and deeply intertwined with history and inequality. Environmental protection often exists alongside communities that have not equally benefited from conservation efforts. This highlighted that ecocentrism without social justice risks becoming exclusionary, a concern widely acknowledged in global sustainability and development literature (UNDP, 2021).

Now, living in the United Kingdom, my host country, I see an ongoing negotiation between ecocentric values and anthropocentric habits. Environmental awareness is high, sustainability frameworks such as the Global Reporting Initiative are widely used, and climate discourse is mainstream. At the same time, convenience, consumption, and comfort remain deeply embedded in everyday life. According to GRI reporting trends, this reflects a transitional phase where values are shifting faster than behaviours (GRI, 2023).

As a member of my generation, raised by older generations who experienced scarcity, reuse, and long-term thinking, I sit somewhere between these perspectives. I believe deeply in ecocentrism, particularly the Mexican and Indigenous approach that prioritizes nature and human connection over material excess. At the same time, I am honest about how tempting anthropocentrism can be when it comes packaged as comfort, ease, and air conditioning.

My worldview is that of a mutt. It is inherited, cultural, and occasionally contradictory. But if my dinner table metaphor teaches anything, it is this. How we treat leftovers says a lot about how we treat the planet.



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