The Earthscan Reader on Sustainable Consumption

Sustainable consumption is a controversial concept: politically, socially and intellectually. Consumption drives our economies and defines our lives; making it sustainable is an enormous and essential challenge. This book provides a synthesis of key contributions to the literature on consumption and sustainability.

Sustainable consumption is a controversial concept: politically, socially and intellectually. Consumption drives our economies and defines our lives; making it sustainable is an enormous and essential challenge. The World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002 set in place a 10-year programme of effort by national governments to develop strategies for sustainable consumption and production. The problem of changing consumer behaviour and making our lives more sustainable continues to challenge opinion-formers and policy-makers alike. This book provides a coherent synthesis of key contributions to the literature on consumption and sustainability, comprising a substantive collection of selected papers and extracts from books, journals and institutional publications. Presented with a comprehensive introductory overview, the Reader also offers an invaluable 'route map' through the complex intellectual terrain relevant to the pursuit of sustainable consumption.

Readings in Sustainable Consumption * Part I, Framing Sustainable Consumption * Consumption from a Human Development Perspective * Making Sense of Sustainable Consumption * Consumption and It's Externalities: Where Economy Meets Ecology * Pursuing More Sustainable Consumption by Analysing Household Metabolism in European Countires and Cities * Accounting for Sustainable Consumption: A Review of Studies of the Environmental Impacts of Households * Challenges for Sustainable Consumption Policy * Part II, Resisting Consumerism * The Dubious Rewards of Consumption * The New Commodity Fetishism * False Connections * Living More Simply * Voluntary Simplicity: Characterization, Select Psychological Implications and Societal Consequences * Learning Diderot's Lesson: Stopping the Upward Creep of Desire * Part III, Resisting Simplicity * The Politics of Sustainable Consumption: The Case of the Netherlands * The Poverty of Morality * Relative Poverty - Relative Communication * Two Alternative Economic Models of Why Enough Will Never Be Enough * The Evocative Power of Things: Consumer Goods and the Preservation of Hopes and Ideals * Consuming Goods and the Good of Consuming * Part IV, Reframing Sustainable Consumption * Efficiency and Consumption: Technology and Practice * Competing Discourses of Sustainable Consumption: Does the 'Rationalization of Lifestyles' Make Sense? * Ethics of Consumption * Making Ends Meet - in the Household and on the Planet * The Costs and Benefits of Consuming * Consuming Paradise? Towards a Social and Cultural Psychology of Sustainable Consumption * Index