Conceptualizing sustainable consumption: Toward an integrative framework

Publikation: Beiträge in ZeitschriftenZeitschriftenaufsätzeForschungbegutachtet

Authors

  • Antonietta Di Giulio
  • Daniel Fischer
  • Martina Schäfer
  • Birgit Blättel-Mink
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.
OriginalspracheEnglisch
ZeitschriftSustainability: Science, Practice, and Policy
Jahrgang10
Ausgabenummer1
Seiten (von - bis)45-61
Anzahl der Seiten17
DOIs
PublikationsstatusErschienen - 01.04.2014

Zugehörige Projekte

  • BINK - Beitrag von Bildungsinstitutionen zur Förderung nachhaltigen Konsums bei Jugendlichen und jungen Erwachsenen

    Projekt: Forschung

  • Der Beitrag von Schule zur Bewältigung der globalen Konsumherausforderung: Konzeptionelle Klärungen und empirische Beiträge im Spannungsfeld zwischen Erziehungs- und Nachhaltigkeitswissenschaft.

    Projekt: Dissertationsprojekt

Dokumente

DOI

Zuletzt angesehen

Publikationen

  1. A colonial lack of imagination
  2. Narration as Functions
  3. Participation in protected area governance
  4. Why Art Criticism? A Reader
  5. Sustainable Conference Organizing: Practices and Impact
  6. Connecting curricula and competence through student learning journeys
  7. Botar fé no axé
  8. Explicit Apologies in Fictional Telecinematic Discourse
  9. Pervasive Intelligence
  10. Reconnecting with nature for sustainability
  11. An interpretive perspective on co-production in supporting refugee families’ access to childcare in Germany
  12. Control of Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motors for Track Applications
  13. Transdisziplinäre Nähe oder soziologische Distanz?
  14. Promoting neighbourhood sharing: infrastructures of convenience and community
  15. Quantum Chemical Calculation and Evaluation of Partition Coefficients for Classical and Emerging Environmentally Relevant Organic Compounds
  16. Operation B
  17. Fostering pre-service teachers’ knowledge of ‘teaching games for understanding’ via video-based vs. text-based teaching examples
  18. The predictive value of individual and work-related resources for the health and work satisfaction of German school principals
  19. Current and New Research Perspectives on Dynamic Facial Emotion Detection in Emotional Interface
  20. Effects of pesticides on community structure and ecosystem functions in agricultural streams of three biogeographical regions in Europe
  21. Shallow
  22. The theory of socio-cultural evolution
  23. Comparative effectiveness of three versions of a stepped care model for insomnia differing in the amount of therapist support in internet-delivered treatment
  24. Testing for Economies of Scope in European Railways
  25. A dynamic account of self-efficacy in entrepreneurship
  26. Repeat Receipts
  27. Linking modes of research to their scientific and societal outcomes. Evidence from 81 sustainability-oriented research projects
  28. Planar multipole resonance probe
  29. Mining User-Generated Financial Content to Predict Stock Price Movements
  30. Cost of quality reports and value engineering
  31. Non-linear effects of comparison income in quit decisions: status versus signal !
  32. Empathy and empathic leadership practices in schools – a scoping review