(Un)sustainable consumption: a contested, compelling and critical field (original) (raw)
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Sustainable consumption in national context: an introduction to the symposium
Sustainability: Science, Practice, & Policy, 2005
International institutions over the past decade have begun to emphasize the need to reduce the environmental impacts of heavily consumerist lifestyles in affluent nations as a precondition for sustainable development. Originally outlined in Agenda 21, and discussed at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, sustainable consumption has now emerged as a definable domain of global environmental politics. At the level of high environmental politics, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (UNCSD), and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) have played key roles in reframing environmental deterioration as a consumption problem, rather than a production problem. However, within specific national contexts policymakers and social activists are seeking to engage with the difficult conceptual and political dilemmas posed by contemporary modes of material provisioning. This introductory overview highlights the histori...
The paper elaborates on sustainable consumption and provides key arguments from the sustainable consumption literature. It introduces ‘environmental space’ as one of the early concepts which embedded sustainable consumption within natural and social boundaries. It explains why a floor as well as a ceiling for the environmental space has to be considered and reflects on the space itself, its size and how to share it. Various possible paths of transition to reach the environmental space from a position of overconsumption as well as from under-consumption are described and linked to various schools of thought in sustainability research. Specific emphasis is given to a more detailed analysis of the two concepts of ‘green growth’ and ‘de-growth’. Relating these concepts to sustainable consumption research and politics, the chapter distinguishes between strong and weak sustainable consumption and outlines some enabling mechanisms for sustainable consumption.