Sustainable Consumption: Practices, Habits and Politics

Abstract

The impact, character and consequences of human activity on the natural environment provide one of today’s most urgent topics for analysis. Sustainable consumption rose rapidly up the political agenda at the end of the twentieth century because of environmental concerns (Cohen 2001; Rumpala 2011). Contemporary patterns of personal and household consumption pose an enormous challenge for the mitigation of the effects of climate change. While no overall definition of sustainability commands scientific consensus, and no unconditional or universal recipe for the design of sustainable lifestyles exists, the literature repeatedly identifies a list of problematic activities which provide a pragmatic focus of attention. Tukker et al. (2010: 13) point out that ‘food and beverages, mobility, housing and energy-using products are the most critical domains from the point of view of sustainability’. The water required for rearing beef cattle, the burning of dirty fossil fuels for purposes of travel, and the energy required to keep dwellings, workplaces and public buildings at a constant temperature of approximately 22 degrees Celsius make major contributions to global warming (Fairlie 2010; Shove et al. 2012, 2014; Urry 2011). Tukker et al. document clearly the parameters of the problem of unsustainable household consumption activity, although in adopting the perspective of industrial ecology they lay as much emphasis on production as on consumption; indeed, they sail under the banner of Sustainable Consumption and Production. Summarising a vast number of studies, many of them based on Life Cycle Analysis of products, from which the domestic component of the activity can be isolated, they identify the variables which explain differences in the environmental impacts of individuals and households. The key factors include income (the rich consume more), household size, location (urban is cleaner), automobile ownership, food consumption patterns (although there are no clear heuristics—are local, greenhouse-grown products superior to those from a distance heated by the sun?), international and interregional trade (where low-wage countries often have less efficient production methods), social and cultural differences between countries, and housing type (modern city flats do least damage).