Well, yes, as a consumer, we are our own, and, indeed, the planet's, worst enemies. And worse, it is the simple everyday things we do that are to blame. But if you looked in the
mirror now, would you recognise yourself as public enemy No 1? Probably not.

Recently, the cost of unleaded petrol has reached £1.25 a litre, to huge groans from drivers across the country, while British Gas announced an unbelievable 30 per cent price increase to its customers, the cue for more groans.

The reasons? The global demand for oil is increasing at a faster rate than supply, enabling the price increases and the profit-making. It is very easy to point to increased consumption by India and China, but the developed world, that means us, is just as much to blame.

Take the average car. Admittedly, this is now an essential means of transport for most families, but is it really necessary to own a three-litre, gas-guzzling 4x4, complete with "bull bars" when its main use is to take the children to school? Why can't they walk, cycle or use public transport? And do we really need more than
one car?

Sadly, the car we drive has become as much of a status symbol as a method of transport. Specialist manufacturers, and celebrated TV programmes, like Top Gear, continue to promote the latest "cool" BMW, Porsche and Range Rover models when what they could be doing is paying far more attention to small and combination cars that are,
yes, less "sexy" but also have far
lower emissions.

What about the food we eat? In the last year or so, the price of many basic food items has gone though the roof. And, again, to some extent, demand and supply are to blame.

But there is also a link to the rising price of oil as many of the more
exotic and, dare I say, less essential products we eat are travelling many thousands of "food miles" – the term logisticians use to describe the distance that our food travels from where it is first grown to when it reaches the shop.

So, do we really need kiwi fruits from New Zealand, or dragon fruit and baby sweetcorn air-freighted from Thailand? Does the apparently insatiable demand for mangoes from India or passion fruit from Uruguay satisfy a genuine need, or does it just spring from celebrity-fuelled gastro-lust?

We can live happily without these products, yet as selfish consumers we continue to buy them just as our greedy, profit-driven supermarkets know we will.

But this is just part of the problem. Name a store, virtually any store, it doesn't matter which. There you will find thousands of products made many thousands of miles away. Bringing these goods to our shores is a major logistical operation. It has also led to the use of vast quantities of fossil fuel and the emission of yet more CO2 into the atmosphere.

Unlike the culture of the 1960s, today's society is, nearly to a man, a fully-paid-up member of the "throwaway society". Clothes are bought not to last, but for their fashion value. A mobile telephone is as much a fashion accessory as a means of communication. Electronic equipment – laptops, download devices and even televisions – tend to be discarded long before they cease to be useful.

Enough is enough. Surely we should start to advocate a more fundamental approach.

We need to question the need for many of the items that these supply chains bring us. We have to challenge the idea that durable goods can be treated as fashion accessories that must be changed with the seasons.

Why is this unrealistic? It is true that global trade has contributed to some nations' development and given us all more choice. But at what cost?

Possibly the very least we can do is to ensure that future supply-chain designs include "triple-bottom-line thinking" – that means integrating profit, people and the planet. That way we can be aware of the true
costs of our greed so perhaps we
can continue to enjoy the benefits
of the "global village" without exhausting the oil and not having to worry about the inheritance we leave for our grandchildren.

Still looking in the mirror?