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Sustainable/(Un)sustainable Consumption. Sustainable Consumption. A research field has emerged over the past decade to study the social and environmental implications of household consumption. Sustainable Consumption. Sustainable consumption recognizes three interlinked global problems.
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Sustainable Consumption A research field has emerged over the past decade to study the social and environmental implications of household consumption.
Sustainable Consumption Sustainable consumption recognizes three interlinked global problems.
Global Population Growth The need to prepare for a global population of 9-10 billion over the next forty years.
Global Income Inequality The need to reconcile the huge disparity that exists in access to (and utilization of) global resources.
Global Climate Change The need to address climate change and other global-scale environmental problems.
Factor X Improvements The aim is to sharply reduce the per capita ecological footprint of consumption (especially in affluent countries) over the next four decades.
Sustainable Consumption Policy The last 15 or so years have seen the gradual emergence of a new policy agenda organized around the notion of “sustainable consumption.”
Sustainable Consumption Policy Despite growing recognition of the scale of the challenge, policy makers have been reticent to endorse initiatives that would impose explicit obligations on consumers.
Sustainable Consumption Policy “Around the world, many politicians, the conventional energy sector and manufacturers of all kinds oppose any major reduction in consumption. If people start using less, then economies based on consumption—such as that of the United States, where buying goods and services comprises 70 percent of all economic activity—will be forced to undergo a colossal transformation.”
Sustainable Consumption Policy 1. The emphasis has instead been on relatively modest voluntary initiatives calling for a combination of consumer education, eco-labeling, and household energy efficiency.
Taking Stock of Sustainable Consumption Policy 2. The field has been divided over whether the normative aim is to pragmatically modify the quality of consumption or to endorse more radical measures to reduce its quantity.
Taking Stock of Sustainable Consumption Policy 3. “Sustainable consumption” tends to get subsumed under its more politically agreeable companion notion “sustainable production.”
Taking Stock of Sustainable Consumption Policy 4. It has been difficult to publicly critique consumption practices without inviting charges of interference with consumer sovereignty or the goal of continuous economic growth.
Taking Stock of Sustainable Consumption Policy 5. There has been a deep cleavage between developed countries (overconsumption) and developing countries (underconsumption).
Taking Stock of Sustainable Consumption Policy 6. The “science of sustainable consumption” remains contested over how to determine economic or biophysical thresholds of what might constitute a globally “acceptable” level of consumption.
Taking Stock of Sustainable Consumption Policy 7. The study of (un)sustainable consumption has tended to center on energy and material throughput and has neglected the macroeconomics of resource flows.
Unsustainability of Contemporary Consumption U.S. Personal Debt as a Percentage of GDP
The World’s Favorite Export Destination of First and Last Resort
The United States as a “Debtor Empire” Countries have historically accrued debt of this order of magnitude only during times of major wars.
Brief Summary of Living Within Our Means • The “ecological crisis” and the “credit crisis” are linked and together they will precipitate “the ultimate recession” induced by global climate change. • Biophysical debt and financial debt are inseparable. • There is a strange incompatibility between the urgency surrounding the bailout of financial institutions and global climate change. • The contemporary commitment to economic growth is predicated on “articles of faith.” • Economic system has been artificially perpetuated by deregulation, debt accumulation, cost externalization, undervaluation of risk, short-term decision making, and diminishment of democratic engagement. • The chronic mismatch between productive and consumptive capacities creates needs to continually stoke demand through the permissive use of credit, the deployment of blanket advertising, and the encouragement of insidious forms of status consciousness.
Recommendations/Insights of Living Within Our Means • Realign economic growth with biophysical constraints by launching a “Green New Deal” (i.e., energy efficiency, renewables development, “green collar” jobs, renewable of natural capital, ecological tax reform). • Ecological modernization-led modes of “creative destruction” have a downside that create serious political challenges. • Significant questions surround “environmentally prudent” investments because of the potential to increase levels of consumption, albeit on a slightly greener basis. • Need to acknowledge that absolute decoupling (delinking economic growth and materials utilization) is a myth. • Need to recognize that economic growth undermines the well-being of a majority of the world’s population while simultaneously perpetuating financial risks and ecological harms.
