This timely volume discusses the debates concerning sustainable consumption and the environment.
Sustainable consumption stands as a wide objective that attracts a growing attention within sustainable development policy circles and academic research. The contributors examine a range of interesting and relevant case studies including: household energy consumption, sustainable welfare, Fair Trade, Oxfam Worldshops, cotton farming and consumer organizations.
Sustainable Consumption takes an interdisciplinary approach and is well-balanced, presenting theoretical debates as well as empirical evidence in order to:
- characterize the basic problems and determiners of an evolution towards, and the obstacles to, more sustainable consumption patterns
- produce knowledge on the profile of consumers sensitive, and not sensitive, to these issues
- explore realistic modes of interaction and innovation for changes in which consumers are involved.
This text will be of interest to students and scholars of politics, environment studies and sociology.
Edwin Zaccaï
PART 1: Consumption: What kind of problem for sustainable development?
2. What’s wrong with consumption for sustainable development: overconsumption, underconsumption, misconsumption?
Paul-Marie Boulanger
3. Sustainable household consumption: fact, future or fantasy?
Anton J. M. Schoot Uiterkamp
4. Sustainable consumption and sustainable welfare
John Lintott
5. How to attribute power to consumers? When epistemology and politics converge
Grégoire Wallenborn
PART 2: Who is sensible to sustainable consumption, and why?
6. Testing proposition towards sustainable consumption among consumers
Catherine Rousseau & Christian Bontinckx
7. Greening some consumption behaviours: do new routines require agency and reflexivity?
Françoise Bartiaux
8. Marketing ethical products: what can we learn from fair-trade consumer behaviour in Belgium?
Patrick De Pelsmacker, Wim Janssens, Caroline Mielants, Ellen Sterckx
9. Consumption as a solidarity-based commitment: the case of Oxfam Worldshops’ customers
Gautier Pirotte
10. What justifications for a sustainable consumption?
Coline Ruwet
PART 3: Dynamics of sustainable consumption
11. Consumption: a field for resistance and moral containment
Michelle Dobré
12. Sustainable consumption in a “de-growth” perspective
Serge Latouche
13. Social change for changing the consumer’s behaviour. Application of the actionalist theory to the issue of consumption
Nadine Fraselle & Isabelle Scherer-Haynes
14. Is large-scale Fair Trade possible?
Ronan Le Velly
15. Impact of Fair Trade in South: an example from the Indian cotton sector
Isabelle Scherer-Haynes
16. Conclusions: the future of sustainable consumption
Paul-Marie Boulanger et Edwin Zaccaï
Bibliography
Biography
Edwin Zaccaï