Monday June 16, 2008 at 8:33
“FIRST there were hippies. Then there were yuppies. And now, swarming around us in their ethical yet impossibly stylish shoes, we have scuppies, a hybrid of the two.
Standing for Socially Conscious Upwardly Mobile Persons, scuppies are the most influential consumer group of our time. Just like hippies, they care about society and the environment — but, just like yuppies, they care about their quality of life and bank balance, too.
The term was coined by the self-confessed American scuppie Chuck Failla: “I’m a professional. I’m ambitious, I like nice things. I want security and a degree of wealth. But I don’t like to go after those goals in anything other than a socially conscious way.”
Now, thanks to a scuppie manifesto on his website and The Scuppie Handbook, due to hit the shelves later this year, he is showing others how to live the scuppie way.
Being a scuppie is about having a high-quality, ethical lifestyle.
Scuppies have decent jobs and make good money, but might, like Failla, indulge in a little pro bono work on the side. They still buy all the nice stuff, they just make sure it doesn’t come at (too high) an environmental/social/human cost.
So, Starbucks is fine, if it’s Fairtrade coffee. And imported fruit on home-made granola in the morning is OK, if it was carried home from the supermarket in a recycled bag.
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