Can shopping save the world? The Story of Change is a new short movie that urges viewers to put down their credit cards and start exercising their citizen muscles to build a more sustainable, just and fulfilling world.

Produced by the California-based The Story of Stuff Project, you’ll find all kinds of useful tips and interactive materials on their website, such as the film as a free download (for example, for educators), support materials for different kinds of change makers (Are you a resistor? A networker? An investigator?) plus an annotated copy of  the script, podcasts and other helpful things that encourage exercising your citizen muscles.

The goal of the film and the project, while hugely ambitious, does not come across as naïve or simplistic. By encouraging viewers to discover social change for themselves in the places that they are active in their lives, whether at home or in work, it creates a solid starting point for taking action to campaign on making things better for people and the environment.

The first film in the series, The Story of Stuff, surpassed 1.7 million views since its release in 2007 and has become something of a smash hit in environmental-themed online short films, despite it being 20 minutes long. Grab a cuppa tea and see it for yourself. Then go out and do something about it:

From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns…[it] exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world.