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Modern man’s unsustainable systems of production and consumption are symptoms of underlying problems in how we understand and relate to the material world. Socially constructed dualities between the social and natural sciences and between meaning and materiality have encouraged societies to indulge in magical thinking about the ability of material goods to deliver nonmaterial wellbeing, which in turn places marketing at the center of the destructive overconsumption of natural capital. This essay calls attention to a growing philosophical countertrend, neomaterialism, that is reshaping research in such a way as to collapse such false dualities. The new materialism, carried over to marketing practice, demands a meticulous, if not obsessive, attention to material things, their provenance, their agency and their downstream destinations, thus forming the basis of a more sustainable society.

Corporate sustainability management encompasses multiple dimensions: environmental, social, and economic. Companies are increasingly evaluated within the public sphere, and within their own organizations, according to the degree to which they are perceived to simultaneously promote this nexus of virtues. This article seeks to explore the tensions frequently faced by organizations that strive to manage these dimensions and the role of public policy in that pursuit. A multiple-case study approach is utilized in which the authors selected case organizations according to whether they were attempting to manage the three dimensions of sustainability. The authors utilize paradox theory and a typology provided by previous research to understand the nature of the tensions that emerge in the selected case study organizations. They extend this previous work by examining the role of public policy in providing the situational conditions to make these paradoxical tensions salient, and they examine organizational responses to these conditions. Directions for firms, policy makers, and future researchers are provided on the basis of this study's findings.

One of the primary causes of environmental problems is the overconsumption of natural resources, such as those invested in the production of consumer goods. To combat overconsumption, some researchers and policy makers have suggested that consumers should extend product life spans through sustainable and anticonsumption practices. In keeping with this proposition, the authors use the consumer context of repurposing to explore the extension of product life spans through processes of reusing and reclaiming. The results identify the antecedents, processes, and outcomes of repurposing. Antecedents of repurposing include social influences, repurposing motivations, and object agency. The process of repurposing takes three forms: aesthetic, functional, and amalgamative. Repurposing outcomes include value creation, behavioral and perception effects, and identity effects. Overall, the results offer marketers and policy makers insights into repurposing as an important avenue for lengthening product life spans and promoting sustainable consumption.

Adventure travel represents an interesting form of consumer behavior that has seen tremendous growth as a segment of the tourism industry. In Study 1, we employ a hierarchical model of personality to identify the personality traits predictive of a broad measure of adventure travel. In Study 2, we distinguish several types of travel, including soft-adventure travel, hard-adventure travel, luxury travel, and camping. We then compare the trait predictors of each of the constructs. The results reveal that the motivational network of traits is different for the divergent types of travel interest.