Conceptualizing sustainable consumption: toward an integrative framework

Abstract

Consumption and sustainability are complex issues-they cannot be reduced to the choice of consumer goods or to "green consumption." Doing so would neglect the multifaceted embeddedness of consumer acts and the multidimensionality of sustainability. To understand patterns of consumption and move them toward sustainability means dealing with this double complexity. A coherent reference framework is therefore needed, to enable locating and correlating research questions, theories, and findings. Such a framework should provide a basis for interdisciplinary understanding, mutual acknowledgment, and collaborative knowledge creation. Therefore, it needs to be the result of an integrative approach; otherwise it would not allow a wide variety of disciplines to work with it. This article presents such a framework, developed in the course of an interdisciplinary process in a research program. In this process, the researchers of the focal topic asked four questions: 1) How can consumption be conceptualized? 2) How can consumption and sustainability be related? 3) How can sustainable consumption be assessed? and 4) How can changes to individual consumption be motivated? The article condenses the researchers' overall answers to these questions into four complementary core statements capturing the key elements of the reference framework and concludes by sketching the framework's benefits for future research.

Power: the missing element in sustainable consumption and absolute reductions research and action

“…Individual acts of consumption can be seen as the result of multiple factors combining across different levels and over time, producing patterns of consumption whose origins and drivers are murky at best (Di Giulio et al 2014;Kaufmann-Hayoz et al 2012). Such murkiness has, as we perceive it, the effect of sidelining questions of power and agency, because in this complexity power becomes diffuse and no single actor can influence the nature or direction of consumption (e.g.…”

Transforming Consumption: From Decoupling, to Behavior Change, to System Changes for Sustainable Consumption

“…. contribute to creating or sustaining external conditions that allow all human beings to meet their objective needs today and in the future" (18).…”

“…Thus, although like weak sustainable consumption they focus on the most environmentally impactful areas-transport, housing, and food-their research yields distinct policy insights that diverge from technology-focused innovation. They advocate for social and political processes and innovations to assist rapid decreases in private automobile use and meat consumption (44,79); transit-oriented development; decreased food waste; increased recycling, repairing, sharing, and reuse of goods (67,79,80); and equitable levels of consumption in the developing world (18,81).…”

Green Public Procurement: Case Study of Latvian Municipalities

“…The United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development developed the Concept of Sustainable Development "Our Common Future (1987)" that was widely used in the context of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Sustainable development concept was defined at the international event in 1995 in Oslo as follows: "use of goods and services that respond to basic needs and bring a better quality of life, while minimizing the use of natural resources, toxic materials and emissions of waste and pollutants over the life cycle, so as not to jeopardize the needs of future generations" (Giulio et al, 2014). The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) made "green growth" its 2011 slogan (Lorek & Spangenberg, 2014).…”

“…O'Rourke and Lollo (2015) point out that in the light of economic performance, developed countries are responsible for most of the environmental impacts of consumption, Giulio et al (2014) emphasise that consumption and sustainability are a complex issue that needs to be seen in a complex way and cannot be reduced to a choice of consumer goods. Nissinen, Parrikka-Alhola and Rita (2009) highlight GPP as an essential policy tool for sustainable consumption development.…”