Journal of Cleaner Production 63 (2014) 13e23
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
Journal of Cleaner Production
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro
Consumer scapegoatism and limits to green consumerism
Lewis Akenji*
Institute for Global environmental Strategies (IGES), 2108-11 Kamiyamaguchi, Hayama, Kanagawa 240-0115, Japan
a r t i c l e i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Article history:
Received 12 September 2012
Received in revised form
18 April 2013
Accepted 17 May 2013
Available online 4 June 2013
An axiom that has shaped policy approaches to sustainable consumption has been that if more consumers understand the environmental consequences of their consumption patterns, through their
market choices they would inevitably put pressure on retailers and manufacturers to move towards
sustainable production. The result is the proliferation of consumption of “green” products, eco-labels,
consumer awareness campaigns, etc.
This paper, however, argues that the dominant focus on green consumerism as against the need for
structural changes towards a broader systemic shift is unrealistic. Furthermore, promoting green
consumerism at once lays responsibility on consumers to undertake the function of maintaining
economic growth while simultaneously, even if contradictorily, bearing the burden to drive the system
towards sustainability. Given the scope of the sustainability challenge and the urgency with which
it must be addressed, this paper argues that the consumer is not the most salient agent in the productioneconsumption system; expecting the consumer through green consumerism to shift society
towards SCP patterns is consumer scapegoatism.
This paper draws on the discursive confusion over discourse and practice of sustainable consumption.
It attempts to clarify the differences between green consumerism and sustainable consumption, looking
at each concept’s historical development, its perspective on the consumer, and the main approaches to
achieving sustainability. It then introduces the Attitudes-Facilitators-Infrastructure (AFI) framework e a
framework for sustainable consumption policy design that goes beyond green consumerism, and that
enables wellbeing and ecological sustainability without propagating the economic-growth dogma that
has a stranglehold on contemporary policy-making.
Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
Green consumerism
Sustainable consumption
Consumer scapegoatism
Sustainability policy design
AFI framework
1. Introduction
The central premise of this paper is that governments have
encouraged policies that foster green consumerism (GC) instead of
sustainable consumption (SC); that GC, although incorporates
environmental considerations, is at best at the periphery of SC and,
even worse, provides an illusion of progress which distracts from
the urgent structural changes needed in order to achieve sustainable development (SD). Differences between green consumerism
and sustainable consumption might initially seem to be only semantic; the policy propositions however and practical consequences have serious implications on achieving a sustainable
civilization.
Green consumerism refers to the production, promotion, and
preferential consumption of goods and services on the basis of their
pro-environment claims. The popularity of such examples as the
* Tel.: þ81 46 826 9594; fax: þ81 46 855 3709.
E-mail addresses: akenji@iges.or.jp, lewis@mankon.org.
0959-6526/$ e see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2013.05.022
Toyota Prius, a petroleelectricity hybrid car, fair trade coffee, energy efficient TV sets, etc., among green consumers are examples of
green consumerism. Among the most visible approaches of promoting green consumerism are eco-labelling schemes for products
and services, public awareness campaigns, eco-efficient production
standards and process certification (especially achieved through
green technology), green public procurement by governments and
public institutions, and recycling activities of post-use products
(Akenji et al., 2011). This is reflected in the works of international
bodies such as the United Nations Environment Programme (see for
example UNEP, 2005; UNEP, 2008; UNEP, 2009; UNEP/Consumers
International, 2006; UNFI, 2007) and the OECD (see for example
OECD, 1997; OECD, 2002a; OECD, 2002b; OECD, 2008a; OECD,
2008c); product labelling codes and standards, and waste recycling policies of national governments, corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies of companies; and shopping and/or
domestic waste recycling by households.
To demonstrate eco-efficiency, in the European Union a Directive (European Parliament, 2010) requires that household electrical
appliances in the market (including refrigerators, freezers, washing
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L. Akenji / Journal of Cleaner Production 63 (2014) 13e23
machines, dryers, ovens, water heaters and hot-water storage appliances, lighting sources, and air-conditioners) carry a label
providing information on energy consumption. Energy efficiency of
appliances is displayed on a fiche and rated from A to G, with energy efficiency of A-rated products (and the Aþvariations) being
very high, and very low with G-rated products. The intention is to
have consumers choose products that consume less energy and to
encourage manufacturers to meet market demands for these efficient products. The EU Action Plan for SCP mirrors the same message of improvements in efficiency of consumer products (EC,
2008). The paradoxical consequence of promoting GC demonstrated by the case of household appliances is the so-called
rebound effect (Herring and Sorrell, 2009): although washing machines and television sets have become more efficient, savings per
unit have meant that people buy even more e the absolute amount
of consumption has increased, outstripping the efficiency gains.
Patterns indicate growing popularity of energy efficient household machines, fair trade chocolate, dolphin-free canned tuna, and
organic cotton fashion. While data on these niche initiatives might
be promising; data from areas that are central to social, economic
and environmental sustainability is less promising. Fisheries and
fertility of farmlands are in decline; natural resource stocks, the raw
materials for production, are dwindling; inequality is growing in
society; many more illnesses related to unsustainable lifestyles are
being diagnosed. Jackson (2009) has pointed out that despite
declining energy and carbon intensities, CO2 emissions from fossil
fuels have increased by 80% since 1970. Emissions today are almost
40% higher than they were in 1990 e the Kyoto base year e and
since 2000 that have been growing at over 3% per year. Global
extraction of metal ores e iron ore, bauxite, copper and nickel e is
now rising faster than world GDP. Similarly, cement production has
more than doubled since 1990, outstripping growth of GDP by 70%.
In the case of Asia, as emerging economies build up their infrastructure and a more demanding consumer class emerges, there is
increasing pressure on natural and social resources. Observers of
these patterns and those making the critical distinction between
relative and absolute decoupling of economic growth from environmental pressure e “absolute” being the measure needed to stay
within ecological limits e have cautioned against striving for
decoupling while ignoring consumerism (ibid).
Future projections hold further demands on the environment,
with serious potential consequences on human well-being. By 2050
the planet would have to handle 9 billion people, having lifted
almost a quarter of them out of poverty and accommodating a
potent consumer class of more than half the global population in
cities (Meadows et al., 2004). The International Energy Agency (IEA,
2009) estimates that at the current rates of consumption, global
primary energy demand will rise by 40% between 2007 and 2030.
The OECD (2008b) projects that in cities, where most people will be
living by 2030, there will be further deteriorations to urban air
quality with severe health effects from exposure to particulate
matter and ozone. Exposure of agricultural crops to ozone cost an
estimated 2.8 billion Euros in 2008 (ibid); globally over 2 million
people die prematurely each year due to indoor and outdoor
pollution (UNEP, 2007).
Ethical and environmental standards have been introduced, but
extraction of both renewable and non-renewable resources continues and at an increasing pace.1 The production process has been
“streamlined” and manufacturing “leaner”; with increasing reliance on technology, energy efficiency and resource productivity
have improved, but the sheer volume of material production keeps
1
In fact raw materials are now being used as a weapon in geopolitical wars (see
China and rare earth metals, Iran and oil, Palestine/Israel conflict and water).
growing. Eco-labels have been introduced to guide consumers’
shopping decisions, and niche products (such as organic products,
fair trade products, etc) have come to the market but the most
visible change is a paradoxical trend of increasing consumption;
design of systems of provision has hardly changed. Essentially, even
with the widely promoted and now accepted notions of green
consumerism, production and consumption continue to increase in
an unsustainable manner and pace.
Previous literature has similar comparisons, essentially trying to
differentiate GC from the transformative potential of SC to deliver
the objectives of sustainable development. Fedrigo and Hontelez
(2010) observe that through promoting GC, SC has been downgraded to “sustainable consumer procurement”. Aunty and Brown
(cited from Hobson, 2006) refer to green products and technologically driven solutions as ‘weak sustainability’; Fuchs and Lorek
(2005) pick up on this to highlight the differences between a
“weak” SC approach (based on efficiency) and a “strong” SC
approach (based on sufficiency). The emerging new economics
domain emphasizes needed deep systemic changes as against
current peripheral activities (Brown et al., 2012; Jackson, 2009).
Instead of the narrow focus of green consumerism, Lebel and Lorek
(2008) propose to enable “sustainable productioneconsumption
systems”.
This paper draws on the discursive confusion over discourse and
practice of sustainable consumption (Hobson, 2006; Markula and
Moisander, 2011) in an attempt to clarify the differences between
GC and SC, and to provide a broadened framework for SC policy
design that enables wellbeing and ecological sustainability without
propagating the economic growth dogma that has a stranglehold
on contemporary policy making (Daly, 1996; Jackson, 2009;
Meadows et al 2004, Princen et al., 2002; Schor, 2010).
The paper starts by presenting the proliferation of green
consumerism in sustainable consumption policy. In the following
section it addresses the differences between GC and SC, examining
their histories, definitions of the consumer, proponents of the
different viewpoints, sample policies, and the central tenets. The
above criteria are discussed not in a linear analysis but interwoven
to reflect the complexity of the issue. The paper then presents some
frameworks for understanding consumer behaviour and, drawing
from them, introduces a framework for sustainable consumption
policy, arguing that in order for consumers to exercise agency, there
must be three preconditions: the right attitude, facilitators that
could translate attitude to behaviour, and sustainable products and
infrastructure. The paper then concludes by proposing a four-action
policy plan for policy to enable sustainable consumption.
2. Differentiating green consumerism from sustainable
consumption: an analysis of literature
2.1. Historical development
A recent history of SC can be referred back to the 19th century,
with writers like Henry Thoreau and Thorstein Veblen as early
critics of high levels of consumption in industrial society. Although
consumerism was not necessarily related to environmental consequences, criticism of conspicuous consumption (see Veblen,
1899) came under the lens of pursuits of social status and the potential socially distorting consequences it had on contemporary
society. A more recent history of SC in international policy can be
seen from the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment;
this was in the same year as the release by the Club of Rome of the
landmark publication The Limits to Growth with a clarion call to shift
course away from the economic growth paradigm in order to avoid
overshoot and collapse (Meadows et al., 1972). In 1992 at the Rio
Earth Summit, SC came to be established as a policy concept in its
L. Akenji / Journal of Cleaner Production 63 (2014) 13e23
own right when world leaders acknowledged that “the major cause
of the continued deterioration of the global environment is the
unsustainable pattern of consumption and production” (UN, 1992;
x4.3). Chapter four of Agenda 21, the blueprint for action resulting
from Rio, is dedicated to “changing consumption patterns” with
two broad objectives to guide government actions (UN, 1992):
a) To promote patterns of consumption and production that
reduce environmental stress and will meet the basic needs of
humanity;
b) To develop a better understanding of the role of consumption
and how to bring about more sustainable consumption
patterns.
This central role of sustainable consumption and production
(SCP) in achieving sustainable development was reaffirmed at
the World Summit for Sustainable Development in 2002; SCP was
declared once again one of the “overarching objectives of, and
essential requirements for, sustainable development” (UN, 2003, 2)
e the other two objectives are environmental protection and poverty
reduction. Governments committed to develop national strategies,
policies and action plans to “accelerate the shift” towards SCP.
For GC, an institutional history of the concept is not clear, not
least because it is a practice approach driven by the market, unlike
SC which is on policy agenda and thus can be traced through records of government deliberations. However, central tenets of
green consumerism can be traced to the emergence of public
consciousness of environmental and social problems relating to
economic activities. In this respect, green consumerism is the
practical, early baby step that grew into sustainable consumption
and pushed it into the international policy agenda (Hobson, 2006).
This paper attempts to briefly trace it hear through the history of
consumer organisations and efficiency policies.
In March 1960 the first international conference of Consumer
organizations took place in The Hague resulting in an agreement to
foster a global consumer movement and to create the International
Organisation of Consumers Unions (now Consumers International)
(Consumers International, 2013). Shortly after, in 1962 US President
John Kennedy declared the four basic rights of consumer e the
rights to safety, information, choice and legal representation. These
rights were adopted as the basic operating guide for consumer
organizations. However as environmental and social concerns grew
these organisations sought to use consumer influence to seek
broader rights. To the four basic rights, they added: the rights to
satisfaction of basic needs, redress, consumer education and a
healthy environment. The United Nations adopted these rights in
1985 (Ha et al., 2009). As issues such as animal rights, poverty, child
labour became prominent in public discourse, activist organizations such as Greenpeace emerged and began employing more
radical approaches (e.g. demonstrations against companies, calls
for product boycotts) that created broader consciousness and
demanded urgent action. One of the first globally recognised
environment labels for certified products and services was the Blue
Angel (Blauer Engel) in Germany in 1978. Today it certifies over
10,000 products from 1000 licensees (Lebel and Lorek, 2008).
Harrison et al. (2005) have proposed some external factors that
influence the growth of ethical consumer consumption e a variant
of green consumerism. They include:
i. social and environmental effects of technological advance;
ii. the rise of campaigning pressure groups;
iii. increasing product choices and a shift in market power towards consumers;
iv. globalization of the markets and weakening of national
governments;
15
v. the rise of transnational corporations and brands;
vi. effectiveness of market campaigning;
vii. the growth of a wider corporate responsibility movement.
Harrison et al. argue that such discriminating consumerism can
also be seen in light of attempts by consumers seeking to maximize
their political effectiveness in a rapidly changing global economy.
As civil organisations put more pressure, governments and industry needed to show some degree of response to the problem. For
example, eco-efficiency, a reductionist approach to sustainable
production, was coined and proposed by the World Business
Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) (Schmidheiny,
1992). It largely depends on technology to achieve more efficient
production without sacrificing the pro-economic growth approach
of producing more goods and services. At the 1992 Earth Summit,
allusion was made to the concept, for example where Agenda 21
(x4.18) asks that: “Governments, in cooperation with industry,
should therefore intensify efforts to use energy and resources in an
economically efficient and environmentally sound manner”. By the
2002 Earth Summit in Johannesburg the WBCSD coinage of the
phrase had become widely accepted; the concept made its way to
the outcomes of the Summit as one of the recommended approaches to SCP. The Johannesburg Plan of Implementation declares the need to: “increase eco-efficiency” (UN 2003; x3.14(f)).
Green consumerism has grown as green marketing has increased
its persistence and sophistication (Kilbourne and Beckman, 1998;
Wagner-Tsukamoto, 2009; Hartmann et al., 2005).
2.2. Perspective on the consumer
Another key difference is in the definition of a consumer.
Hobson (2006, P 309) has observed that an essential part of the
discourse on GC is the framing of individuals as consumers, that “all
individuals possess a utility function” which the free market simply
answers to. Taking the cue, (Cohen (2005) argues that in designing
policies and instruments for implementation, strategies for sustainability, and activities, governments for the past 30 years have
relegated the role of consumers to end-users and intermediaries,
failing to “recognize consumers as serious interlocutors in policy
design and implementation.” When it comes to interfering on
individual choices, policy makers regard individual consumption as
a sovereign domain, beyond the reach of public intervention.
Although governments have intervened in consumption of certain
products e e.g. tobacco, firearms, alcohol, etc e especially in
affluent countries, “neo-liberal thinking cautions against using
public policy to unduly manage consumer decision making”.
The logic for promoting end-point green consumerism seems to
be that in a democratic market economy, there would be continued
production of a product only if there is a market for it; since the
consumer is the target objective, through the patterns of consumption and the choices they make, there is a direct consequence
on what is produced. Thus a critical mass of informed, ecologically
conscious consumers can, through the market mechanism, apply
pressure on producers that would translate to how the environment is being treated.
Green consumerism is necessarily related to the market for
products e as is demonstrated by the case of eco-labelled and energy efficient products. Hartmann et al. (2005; P:10), looking at
business strategies to position their products as green, say “a green
brand identity is defined by a specific set of brand attributes and
benefits related to the reduced environmental impact of the brand
and its perception as being environmentally sound”. To de Boer
(2003, P 258) although there might be diverse reasons for companies to choose eco-labelling, an important motivation is that such
labelling “can always be translated into traditional business criteria,
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L. Akenji / Journal of Cleaner Production 63 (2014) 13e23
aimed at short-term and long-term profits”. To the producer, being
green strategically provides a market for its products e “individuated consumers-as-final-demanders” (Princen et al., 2002; P:17). To
the environmentally conscious consumer, green consumerism
provides a “warm glow” from acting in an altruistic manner (Autio
et al., 2009).
Princen (2002) and Clapp (2002) have used the concept of
“distancing” to explain one of the consequences of isolating consumers from the systemic perspective of production and consumption. To Princen, physical, cultural and other forms of
distancing keep the consumer away from understanding how
lifestyle purchases affect resource extraction for production. From
the opposite end of the product chain, Clapp applies the same
concept to waste. She argues that because household waste is
conveniently and regularly collected and disposed of, people have
little understanding of where the waste associated with the production of their purchases ends up. This leads to a growing mental,
cultural and geographic distance between consumers and their
waste. Whether from resource extraction or waste generation, the
more people are isolated as final-end consumers, green or otherwise, distancing causes ecological feedback to be severed, leading
to decisions that perpetuate resource overuse and increased waste
generation. For the green end-consumer, the warm glow is derived
from believing the green marketing, and not from any realistic
understanding of the ecological consequences - especially as consumption accumulates (see rebound effects, for example).
For SC, in addition to end-users, the producer is also a consumer
e as in the consumption of raw material, consumers of labour and
consumers of other producers’ products and services. Princen et al.
(2002; P 3) have argued that SC in a deep sense addresses:
“throughput (the overall flow of material and energy in the human
system), growth (increasing economic activity or throughput or
both), scale (the relationship of the scope and speed of economic or
‘material provisioning’ activity to human and ecological capacity),
and patterns of resource use (the quantities and qualities of products used, their meanings and their changes per capita over time)”.
This view is being reflected in a growing body of research that
Cohen et al. (2013) say represents a perspective on the political
economy of consumption (see, for example, Jackson, 2009; Cohen
et al., 2013). The political economy of consumption sees patterns
such as intensifying environmental stress, growing economic
volatility and widening social inequality as being interlinked and
needing to be addressed under the same framework. Alas this
understanding is still mostly prevalent in the research community
as well as among some progressive advocacy groups.
2.3. Main approaches
An extension of the above argument is that green consumerism
has an end-of-pipe approach. The intention is not to change the
system, but to modify the production processes and the products
that are consumed. The definition of green is based on the subjective perception of the producer and the consumer, not necessarily on the facts of whether such behaviour would achieve the
end objectives of sustainability. Activities such as buying an energyefficient drying machine over using natural sunlight to dry clothes,
or buying bottled tap water packaged in a recyclable PET bottle
begin to take higher meaning under green consumerism. As
Princen et al. (2002; P2) put it, green consumption takes place “in
support of some moral imperative to consume recycled or recyclable products”. For SC, the tendency is to understand the drivers
of consumption and intervening at a preventive level.
The political economy perspective makes the green consumerism approach rather shallow, as it mainly addresses (green)
technology for more efficient production, green purchasing
behaviour by end-users of products, and recycling activities at the
end of life of products. There are however recent indications that
government of especially industrialized countries, in the face of
growing resource scarcity, economic-growth stagnation, and
pressure from growing social movements (Cohen et al., 2013) might
be thinking of this deeper approach. This can be seen in examples
such as the European Commission Communication “GDP and
beyond: Measuring progress in a changing world”, which outlines
an EU roadmap with key actions to improve indicators of progress
in ways that meet citizens’ concerns and make the most of new
technical and political developments (EC, 2009). In France the
Presidential Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress released its report proposing “a
global statistical system which goes beyond commercial activity to
measure personal well-being” (Stiglitz et al., 2009). There still
remain challenges in reflecting this in policies, as well as a lack of
political will to undertake the drastic changes that are needed to
achieve SC through such a paradigm shift.
One of the issues and critical differences is that continuous
economic growth e embodied in GC e is the dominant paradigm;
one which remains central to government legitimacy (Jackson,
2009). On the one hand, at least conceptually, sustainable consumption needs people to consume less, in order to reduce the
pressures on natural resources that are used as raw materials and to
lower wastes resulting from production and consumption. In
contradiction, market-economy systems need to constantly increase consumption in order to sustain the economy. Consumption
drives production, which drives economic growth. Government
and market promoted GC is thus carefully calibrated to not slow
down the economy but to operate as a peripheral activity that
safeguards only against the most damaging and immediate environmental problems. Consequently, the increased emphasis on
efficiency and green consumerism has allowed governments to
walk a fine line that pays lip service to SC while still allowing
consumer sovereignty (Shove, 2006), and tacitly or explicitly
encouraging continuous consumption.
One often commented example of such encouragement is
through policies for consumer loans and credit systems that have
seen steady increases in consumer indebtedness (Jackson, 2009;
Schor, 2010). An explicit example is that by the government of
Japan, which has used the so-called Eco-Points to boost consumer
spending and economic growth. Consumers who buy new energyefficient flat-screen TV sets, refrigerators, air-conditioners, etc., or
who upgrade from old ones to new ones are awarded with EcoPoints, which can then be used to buy even more products. Between 2009 and 2010 during which the Eco-Points program was in
effect, sales of air conditioners rose by 21%, refrigerators by 9% and
digital TV sets by 62% compared to the previous year (MOEJ et al.,
2011).
Sociologist Nick Turnbull surmises that “the state, rather than
undertaking the risk of deficit spending to stimulate growth itself,
is using policy mechanisms to encourage households to do this”,
leading to rising consumption and debt (Spaargaren, 2003). It
becomes evident that promoting green consumerism at once
lays responsibility on consumers to undertake the function of
maintaining economic growth while simultaneously, even if
contradictorily, bearing the burden to drive the system towards
sustainability.
As the UN commemorates the 40th anniversary of the Stockholm Conference and the 20th of the Rio, none of the member
states can demonstrate that it absolutely decoupled economic
growth from environmental pressure. Ecological footprint measures show that the world reached its limits in 1986, and since then
resource use has continuously outstripped biocapacity. 2006 footprint data show that for every 1.8 ha available per person globally,
L. Akenji / Journal of Cleaner Production 63 (2014) 13e23
we are each using on average 2.6 ha Schor (2010) observes that we
are living beyond our planetary means, operating 40% above biocapacity. This assessment matches reports that of the nine “planetary boundaries” (Rockström et al., 2009) within which humans
can operate safely, we have already consumed our way above safe
limits of three (climate, biodiversity, the nitrogen cycle) and are
approaching the limits of four others (freshwater use, land use,
ocean acidification, and the phosphorous cycle).
3. Frameworks for SC
There are many approaches to studying consumer behaviour
and for analysing the policies that influence them (see, for example
Jackson’s (2005) review for the Sustainable Development Research
Network for an extensive discussion on models or Fuchs’ analysis of
the influence of business power in globalized markets (Fuchs,
2005)). To avoid making consumers the scapegoat and to go
beyond green consumerism, some influential approaches have
been selected and their characteristics analysed. These would be
used to introduce a framework for sustainable consumption policy
in the following section. They include: stakeholder salience in the
value chain; everyday practices of consumers; and awareness,
agency and association as preconditions to sustainability change.
3.1. Stakeholder salience in the value chain
The Triple I framework (Fig. 1) is used in describing and understanding drivers of consumption, how power is wielded by
stakeholders in a value chain, and points of policy interference
(Akenji and Bengtsson, 2010). The ‘I’s represent:
i. the interest of each stakeholder group in the issue
ii. the influence groups have over each other in the value chain
iii. and the instruments they have that provide agency.
To compensate for the broader societal and physical context in
which production and consumption take place, the ‘I’s are placed
against factors such as technology, economy, demography, and
culture. A contribution of this model is that it directs focus to
critical nodes in the value chain such that corrective responsibility
can then be allocated in a manner that is appropriate to the capacity
of each stakeholder. Using the Triple I framework to analyse power
structures in a value chain would reveal the nexus of influence and
also highlight the lead actor e the stakeholder group with the most
influence and the one which if targeted by policy has potential to
use their influence to cause positive cascading changes in the value
chain.
Fig. 1. The Triple I framework. Source: Akenji and Bengtsson (2010)
17
3.2. Everyday practices
According to theories of practice (Shove, 2006; Spaargaren,
2011), everyday household consumptive activities such as bathing, travelling, eating are not consciously motivated and evaluated
by individual households but involve a set of social practices that
cut across society. From this practice perspective, in the activity of
shopping the role of the consumer does not only involve market
exchange but is “a way of procuring many of the goods and services
consumed in the course of other practices” (Røpke, 2009; P 2495).
Resource consumption is thus not premeditated but a consequence
of the practice of partaking in everyday life. A salient feature of this
approach is that practices, instead of the individual become the
basic unit for analysis.
The theories of practice are supported by the systems of provisions perspective. Accordingly the extent to which everyday
household consumption behaviour can change is not only dependent on consumer attitude but also on highly interdependent sociotechnical networks or systems of provision (OECD, 2002) e the
systems through which services or resources are produced, delivered, distributed and used. Demand for household services like
energy, water, waste is structured by the utility companies, manufacturers and regulators involved in specifying technologies and
systems, managing loads and modifying resource flows (Chappells
and Shove, 2003). The approach recognizes the effects on behaviour by lock-in characteristics of social and physical infrastructure.
Using this logic, design for systems and infrastructure for food,
mobility, housing, fashion, etc, predetermine the degree of flexibility an agent has in adopting sustainable lifestyles. The implications are that policies should be directed at not only individual
households but should also reform the systems of provision on
which they depend.
3.3. Awareness-agency-association
David Ballard (2005) has combined a literature overview of
“checklists for sustainable change agents” with his experience from
field research and identified three conditions that need to be present in order to effect a change process for sustainability. They are
awareness, agency, and association.
ix. Awareness of the issue by stakeholders
x. Agency, or identification of meaningful ways to respond
iii. Association with likeminded agents, both to empower
change agents and to mobilize wider support.
4. The Attitudes-facilitators-infrastructure (AFI) framework
While acknowledging consumer responsibility, the above approaches recognize that consumer’s decisions are neither always
individual nor rational but are subject to other factors beyond their
immediate control. Social and physical infrastructure are determinants, giving broad direction to consumer behaviour. Thus
expecting the consumer to overcome such systemic barriers e with
demonstrably limited influence over major players in the value
chain, and already overwhelmed with multiple influences and dayto-day decisions e to be the primary driver of an issue as complex
as sustainable consumption is consumer scapegoatism. It is a case
of targeting the most visible stakeholder rather than the most
influential.
The above approaches provide an understanding of the characteristics of effective framing of policies for SC. To avoid consumer
scapegoatism and to go beyond green consumerism, a policy
framework should address the attitudeebehaviour gap (Markula
and Moisander, 2011), lock-in aspects, consider macro factors that
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L. Akenji / Journal of Cleaner Production 63 (2014) 13e23
influence consumer behaviour, and provide agency. These characteristics have influenced the development of the AttitudeeFacilitatorseInfrastructure (AFI) framework presented in this section
(Fig. 2).
The AFI framework is useful in designing and describing elements of a comprehensive policy package. According to the
framework, to enable sustainable consumption at a systems level,
three elements are needed and should operate in concert with each
other: the right attitude from stakeholders; facilitators to enable
actions reflect attitudes; and appropriate infrastructure that would
make sustainable lifestyles the easier option.
Each of the three elements are described below, showing their
characteristics, influencing factors, associated concepts from literature and practice, and examples of relevant policies.
4.1. Right stakeholder attitude
The right attitude refers to having a (positive) predisposition to
being a sustainable consumer and accepting potential solutions
that would lead to a sustainable civilization. As demonstrated by
the attitudeebehaviour and knowledgeebehaviour gaps, having
the right attitude is not enough. However it provides a frame of
mind which allows for engagement in seeking solutions, acceptability of necessary paradigm changes that would affect the
stakeholder, and makes it easier to facilitate a transition towards
the desired outcomes. This refers not just to consumer attitudes but
also those of all stakeholders involved in the productioneconsumption system, as well as those influencing or being influenced
by it: businesses, policy makers, legal practitioners, farmers, community leaders, politicians, and teachers.
Interdisciplinary research shows that attitudes are shaped by
believe systems, personal values, social norms and mores, knowledge, etc. Influencing factors include education; the cultural,
physical, social and legal environment (what can and what cannot
be tolerated by society/law sends a signal); communication of
exemplary messages, e.g. by highlighting beacons of sustainability
or through the models that create aspirations in society.
Ballard’s (2005) recognition of awareness as a precondition to
driving change supports the importance of attitude. He identifies
four levels of awareness.
i.
ii.
iii.
iv.
awareness
awareness
awareness
awareness
of
of
of
of
the issue or agenda of SD
scale, urgency and relevance of SD,
the complexity of SD,
the limits of human agency.
A transition to a sustainable civilization would be facilitated if
there were conscious efforts to provide knowledge and engrain
those sets of values that would allow agents to act in recognition of
sustainability challenges. Formal school curriculum as well as
Fig. 2. Key elements for mainstreaming sustainable consumption. Source: Author
public events should reflect this. Awareness-raising campaigns are
important not merely for changing people’s shopping choices in the
supermarket but even more in building demand for, and acceptance
of, political decisions and innovative alternatives towards SC. While
there are campaigns to evoke consumer citizenship, there should
also be training programs for business leaders, community leaders,
judges, politicians, etc.
The willingness of a politician, for example, to remove all subsidies on fossil fuels demonstrates an attitude. The right attitude
should, where possible, encourage social over individualistic consumption; and services over material products. We need to foster
attitudes with an appreciation of community, friendships, literature, gardening, etc., and other non-consumptive activities that
have proven to contribute to well-being at little material cost but
for which there is no direct economic valuation in national accounting systems. Having empathy, for example, can also
contribute to SC: in the industrialized world and among the global
consumer class, stakeholders should be able to understand the
plights of those suffering from under-consumption, and be willing
to moderate their levels of consumption in order to free up consumption space so the needs of under-consumers can be met
within ecological boundaries.
With the right attitudes, consumers would be more conscious of
effects of their lifestyles and product choices on the environment;
investors would be more socially and environmentally responsible,
avoiding provision of capital to businesses that wantonly exploit
natural resources and pollute the environment; producers would
conduct a life-cycle analysis of their products, shift to renewable
raw material for production, or switch to providing value instead of
material products. Beyond the technical fixes in production and
marginal changes in consumer behaviour, a right attitude for sustainable consumption requires that consumers, producers and
policy makers learn to imagine a world in which people consume
less (for over-consumers), or differently (for under-consumers).
4.2. Effective facilitators
Facilitators provide an enabling environment or a course of action for a transition to sustainability. It could be a government
regulation that requires cigarette prices to reflect their health costs,
or a village norm where excessive individual accumulation of material wealth is frowned upon. Facilitators provide incentives (e.g.
subsidies) to encourage a particular pattern of behaviour or course,
or places constraints (e.g. fines) to discourage unwanted outcomes.
More critically, facilitators provide agency to stakeholders of sustainable consumption.
Some influencing factors, as well as typical facilitators are legal,
administrative, cultural and commercial.
i. The law provides a legal platform to challenge certain
behaviour; a progressive legal system would provide a platform for innovation. A law (legal facilitator) prohibiting the
sale of bottled water in a town where the quality of tap water
is demonstrated to be safe for consumption discourages
commoditization of water and use of scarce resources for
bottling.
ii. The existence, ease or difficulty of administrative processes
encourages or discourages certain actions. An office (administrative facilitator) set up to ensure local farmers’ produce
are stocked in grocery stores promotes local production and
closer community ties between farmers and buyers of
produce;
iii. Cultures predetermine our day-to-day behaviour, they give
guidance on what is acceptable and what not in a society. A
culture that upholds financial wealth as success encourages
L. Akenji / Journal of Cleaner Production 63 (2014) 13e23
competition, just as a community day when locals come
together to trade skills, services, time shares, and arts among
each other (cultural facilitator) encourages community
action;
iv. The market facilitates buying and selling, e.g. a banking
service (commercial facilitator) that provides low-interest
financing for development of passive houses in a one-planet
community (Desai, 2010).
Facilitators can also act to the detriment of sustainability, e.g. a
patent restriction might prevent the mass deployment of certain
innovative ideas that have a transformative potential; a perverse
subsidy gives fossil fuels a market advantage over relatively more
sustainable options.
Other types of facilitators are also noticeable. Greenpeace
managed in the 1990s to use shocking tactics to draw attention to
environmental issues which were otherwise being ignored. Today
new social movements are emerging eslow food, occupy, transition
towns, etc. These are born out of disillusionment with current
institutional practices and have sought to create suitable alternatives. The longer they last and the more momentum they generate,
the more they become culturally and politically acceptable. Some
facilitators create momentum (e.g. through social movements)
allowing fringe ideas or initiatives to grow into the mainstream;
others create precedence (e.g. innovative actions), providing a
historical reference and a cultural space for acceptability of new
ideas.
In terms of SC, a crucial characteristic of an effective facilitator is
that it recognises the limitations of individual consumer agency to
shift the productioneconsumption system. Social innovators, educators, producers, governments should recognise and reflect this;
public policy (one of the most effective facilitators) needs to catch
up. As Ballard contends, “the most significant agency is usually
found in addressing the wider contextual issues, for instance by
changing the law or by amending the public procurement process
for major projects such that sustainable development issues may
more reliably be incorporated in the design” (Ballard, 2005; P 143).
In a system of runaway economic growth, government ought to
take leadership in deploying transformational policy, to facilitate
engagement in productioneconsumption systems in forms that
fulfil human needs and where attainment of well-being is decoupled from social and ecological stress.
19
Also significant is how infrastructure for various human activity
domains is constructed in relation to each other. Living in a passive
house at a far distance from work and shopping areas encourages
use of transportation in a manner that might be unsustainable. As
such product-system services/provisioning systems should be
developed in combinations that facilitate sustainable lifestyles.
Housing development, for example, should be planned as hubs that
integrate social facilities, transportation options, and communal
utilities, thus requiring little resource intensity in their everyday
use.
Ideally, the infrastructure itself should be constructed with the
most sustainable material and operated in an efficient manner. Low
material and energy input, durability, reparability and easy maintenance are key criteria for developing such infrastructure. A PET
bottle recycling plant that consumes excessive fossil fuel energy in
the recycling process would defeat the purpose!
With effective facilitators and good enough infrastructure,
attitude becomes less relevant e in this case, sustainable behaviour
becomes the easier option. This is somewhat analogous, though in
an opposite effect, to the market bypassing consumer needs to
provide new products and then creating the “need” for them
among consumers. On the reverse side, where the facilitator is
weak and infrastructure unsustainable, attitude becomes key to
moving the system.
5. Four steps beyond consumer scapegoatism
Policy framing should include not only demand-side, individualistic expressions of green consumerism but reflect the institutional, structural and cultural determinants of consumption
(Princen, 2002). It is important that SC is seen as possible out of the
market place, that it involves not only reforming of product choices
and purchasing habits but also of values, reorganization of ways of
meeting needs and redefining the notion of societal progress that is
now held captive by snappy economic-growth statistics and charts.
This section highlights four policy approaches, comprising examples from the research community which, acted upon in unison,
can shift society beyond green consumerism. The role of science
and research is crucial, not only in developing these options into
public policy, but also in helping policy makers set practical, realistic and effective targets for consumption within ecological limits,
while enabling what Jackson (2009) has called shared prosperity.
The four approaches are:
4.3. Appropriate infrastructure
A basic premise of SC is that if a product is to be consumed it
should be the most sustainable option. The physical aspects of
consumption have received much attention, primarily because of
their visibility, hence prevalence of green consumerism. Infrastructure for SC however is more than just about the products.
Getting the product is the end result of several combining factors,
including the social environment and the physical infrastructure.
Eating, going from place to place, and being at home are some of
our everyday activities. As the systems of provision framework
realises, for people to act sustainably the infrastructure that governs these activities must be sustainable and also foster sustainable
behavioural patterns. Such infrastructure should remove negative
lock-ins. Providing a dense network of safe bicycle tracks and
parking space in the city, and prioritizing bus lanes over private car
use would make more sustainable mobility the easier option. The
appropriate infrastructure could also encourage and prioritise local
community bonds over individualisation: e.g. farmers’ markets in
city centres and on strategic transit spots that lie on the way between work and residential zones; local shops that host exchange
or trading of used goods.
i. Taking out the bad options from the market e or making
them less desirable
ii. Integrating measures of well-being in our accounting for
development
iii. Encouraging grassroots innovation and building communities
iv. Defining limits of resource extraction and pollution
5.1. Take out the bad options
The large choice of unsustainable, indistinguishable products in
the market, competitive pricing and aggressive advertising has
made it easier to go along with the more unsustainable options
than the better alternatives. This is perpetuated by sustainable
options being presented as niche, and more expensive products.
Given the scope and urgency of the issue of sustainability, and
considering the multiple influences on consumer decisions, it is not
practical to place the burden on consumers; the paradox of SC in
the contemporary economic system is that the consumer might be
at the centre of the consumption activities, but he or she is not the
most powerful stakeholder in the value chain. The UK Sustainable
Consumption Roundtable (2006, P 16) recognises this challenge
20
L. Akenji / Journal of Cleaner Production 63 (2014) 13e23
and advises that “the lead for ensuring environmental stewardship
must lie higher up in the supply chain.” One of the approaches is to
take the unsustainable options out of the market e a concept also
known as choice-editing (Maniates et al., 2010).
Governments have always used specified sets of factors to filter
out options available to citizens e control of firearms, for example,
for public safety reasons. Similarly, manufacturers and serviceproviders use criteria such as profitability and available technology to decide which products and services to offer. Retailers have to
decide from millions of products on which ones to shelf. Lifestyles
are a function of the options available to people e put differently,
final choices available to citizens and consumers are a reaction to
government policy, manufacturers’ and service providers’ choices,
and retailers’ decisions on what to or not to shelf e this is hardly in
keeping with romantic notions of freedom of choice. Consumer
choices have always been edited!
Traditionally most choice-editing criteria used in public policy
has been based on economic growth, health and safety. However,
pressing issues related to sustainability demand that environmental criteria be used e setting sustainability standards or minimum bars below which products and services are not allowed on
the market. An example of governmental choice editing driven by
sustainability concerns is the phasing out of highly inefficient incandescent light bulbs from domestic use in Australia and the European Union, and the simultaneous encouragement of energy
efficient LED lighting. Applied to SC, choice-editing is about making
the unsustainable option either unavailable or less desirable, or the
more sustainable option the more desirable and easily accessible e
the “default” option.
Sustainability should be an integrated criterion through which
products and services are filtered. Taking the train is currently more
expensive than flying, although the previous is a more sustainable
option. Likewise, most housing designs encourage occupants to buy
individual washing machines, gardening tools per apartment, even
if the equipment is rarely used and can be easily shared or rented.
Granting permits for housing construction should favour collaborative consumption, and integration of product-system services.
Some criteria for choices that could be edited out include: those
that are highly resource consumptive and for which there are better
alternatives/substitutes, especially products that are made from
non-renewable materials; products with waste that is hardly reuseable, difficult to process or harmful to the environment. Edits
should prioritise needs over wants, services over material products,
and social/community provision over individual.
Research is needed in understanding impacts of products and
consumption patterns, and how to use this in setting criteria that
are feasible to implement and effective in solving the problem
without creating negative social and environmental consequences.
While editing out more unsustainable options, governments should
simultaneously provide incentives that will introduce more sustainable ones. In Japan, for example, the government uses the Top
Runner Approach to encourage the market for appliances to be
increasingly efficient. Efficiency standards are pegged equivalent to
the most energy efficient product commercially available in a given
product category. Manufacturers must then ensure that by a given
deadline the average efficiency of all new products within that
category conform with the new benchmark (Komiyama and
Marnay, 2008). Government would have a critical role to play not
only in setting direction but also in “nudging” the market towards
adoption or development of viable alternatives, and the consumer
to adopt new forms of satisfying their needs. Choice-editing can be
effective even when there is yet no pro-sustainability behaviour
and there is a pressing need for change. Effective facilitators and
properly designed systems of provision would, by default, edit out
bad product options and unsustainable behavioural patterns.
5.2. Measure well-being not only growth
At the heart of consumption is the drive to be better, for people
to lead happier lives (Harrison et al., 2005; Hobson, 2006). If that is
ignored in the parameters of how society measures progress, then
the primary motives of consumption are kept out of efforts to
achieve SC. Indicators used in measuring society emphasize which
aspects should be encouraged. The widely used GDP has economic
dynamism as a priority; in a society where growth has become an
end to itself, human well-being has become subservient. A nursing
mother’s time with the new-born baby does not contribute to GDP
growth; neither do non-consumptive leisurely activities like taking
a walk, nor does helping a friend in the garden count. The things
which experience and research show that make people happy
without spending money e a sense of belonging to and trust in
community, a meaningful contribution to society, physical health,
love e have little direct resonance on the GDP. Instead spending on
cancer treatment or paying insurance against robbery stimulates
GDP growth. It’s ironic; our parameters of economic success come
at the expense of our own happiness!
How governments measure progress should integrate indicators
for well-being, and not presume that economic growth necessarily
translates to increased well-being. There are primitive starting
points to build upon: e.g. the Genuine Progress Indicator, the Human Development Index, the Human Wellbeing Index (HWI). The
Human Development Index was developed to encourage peoplecentred development policies; instead of national income accounting it does a comparative measure of life expectancy, standards of living, education, and literacy (UNDP, 2013). The Gini
Coefficient provides an indicative measure of income inequality e a
measure that has been known to affect consumption and lifestyles
(see, for example, World Bank, undated. The Ecological Footprint is
being increasingly used to indicate the impact of our consumption
on the planet and resource potential for future generations.
Admittedly these alternative measures are still being developed,
and do not yet have the quantitative number-crunching potential
that makes GDP easy to employ. However, attempts to measure the
happiness of citizens should not be limited to token insertion of
questions in a national survey otherwise dominated with market or
economic abstractions; a new evaluation platform needs to be
configured based on emerging understanding of macro factor influences on individual behaviour, and the policies and infrastructure of the society changed in order for them to foster elements that
have been shown to increase well-being and equity.
Some countries are already making attempts at integrating
well-being in their measurements. Examples in Asia include
Thailand and Bhutan (Akenji, 2012). Thailand’s Sufficiency Economy approach acknowledges interdependency among people and
with nature, and aims for the people to live in moderation and be
self-reliant (Chalapati, 2008). This guiding philosophy was introduced by the King to guide for the country’s sustainable development instead of becoming an “economic tiger”. In Bhutan,
development is guided by Gross National Happiness (GNH) e to
maximize the happiness of its people, enabling them to achieve
beyond the conventional income-based measures of development.
GNH was made an official national measure by the previous king
and has been endorsed and promoted by the current one (Thinley,
2005). The country has been making efforts to develop ways of
measuring GNH, and to embed it in its strategic plan “Bhutan
2020: A Vision for Peace, Prosperity and Happiness” (Royal
Government of Bhutan, 1999). GNH is currently pursued through
a set of key strategies, known as the four pillars: sustainable and
equitable socio-economic development; conservation of environment; preservation and promotion of culture; and promotion of
good governance.
L. Akenji / Journal of Cleaner Production 63 (2014) 13e23
While examples from Bhutan and Thailand are early experiments at national scale, they are indications of government will to
use facilitators that place well-being at the centre of development.
More research is needed to support such efforts, to develop practical indicators for well-being and their integration in national
planning.
5.3. Encourage grassroots innovation
One of the problems facing SC programs is that it has to a huge
extent been expert-driven, which has tended to circumvent accumulative societal wisdom and to disenfranchise communities of
practice (Barber and Luskin, 2012). Attempted solutions have
largely been market driven and technical, ignoring behavioural
aspects. Furthermore, with deployment of top-down government
sanctioned programs there is the challenge of finding the right
societal scale that would engage constituents, promote ownership
and enable creative agency.2 Yet there are disparate initiatives in a
varied nomenclature of communities aimed at similar objectives as
sustainable consumption, even if they are termed differently e e.g.
healthy lifestyles, one planet living, low-carbon neighbourhoods,
etc. These initiatives are at the heart of the practical shift to sustainable consumption, and need to be incorporated in the broader
attempt at socio-technical transitions (Geels and Schot, 2007).
There is need to shift away from or at least engage both expert
driven, top-down solutions as well as bottom-up practical experimentation as demonstrated by grassroots innovative solutions.
More needs to be done not only to protect and/or build sustainable
communities, which already provide early solutions, but also to
draw lessons from them as microcosms of broader systems.
Transition towns, local currencies, local farmers’ markets,
and voluntary simplicity provide examples of budding ways of
socio-economic self-organisation at grassroots level. Hielscher et al.
(2012, P 10) describe one example of Transition Initiatives as groups
of people who, by organising other local people to enhance energy
related consumption practices, are developing a community-led
response to fossil fuel depletion and climate change. The practices are directed towards anti-consumerism and anti-growth and
try to influence the social, infrastructural and cultural context
which gives meaning to actions. At this scale, people feel more
connected and a part of a community they understand and can
trust; this encourages individual responsibility within a broader
supportive context. Grassroots innovation allows room for people
to design lifestyles that may be different from the mainstream but
more adapted to their needs.
The potential impact of communities is captured by the growing
literature on “grassroots innovation” (Brown and Vergragt, 2012;
Hielscher et al., 2012; Fressoli et al., 2012), or niche experiments
that potentially can show the way forward to large-scale sociotechnical transitions to a more sustainable society (Hielscher et al.,
2012). Grassroots innovations provide “intrinsic benefits” e environmental impacts and socio-economic impacts such as job creation, training and skills development, personal growth, a sense of
community, social capital, improved access to services and facilities,
health improvements, greater civic engagement. They also provide
“diffusion benefits” e the potential to generate transformations
which individuals, “stuck in incumbent socio-technical regimes, are
powerless to change” (Hielscher et al., 2012 P 4).
2
An example of this can be seen during discussions within the EU to bail the
economy of Greece out of a potential collapse. No citizen groups were involved in
the negotiations, which were carried out by banks and the government, and yet the
consequences had far-reaching effects on the lives of Greek citizens. Greeks took to
the streets to protest and have largely rejected the agreement that was arrived at by
bureaucrats and businesses.
21
Those engaged in sustainable grassroots innovation already
have the appropriate attitude. What is needed is facilitators for the
sustainable options to flourish (from niche to society-wide scale)
and infrastructure to enable sustainable practices. Part of the
transition to SC needs encouragement of small-scale production in
households and communities (license regional micro-breweries
and local drinking pubs); encourage shared participation, cooperatives and community ownership (build community-run
schools, public libraries and shared laboratories for experimentation, open more parks, accommodate neighbourhood coffee and tea
houses); shared infrastructure (grant building permits to housing
infrastructure that encourages fosters community building e e.g.
shared laundry equipment); creative engagements and skills (for
crafts, shoe mending, cloth repairs, canning and food preservation,
etc); recognise (through awards) self-supporting sustainable communities (e.g. those that together reduce their electricity consumption); avoid private profit from essential services (like
healthcare and education) and make them affordable; make very
deliberate efforts to integrate citizens in policy design (e.g. through
citizen panels) and civil society organisations. An additional benefit
of this approach is that it builds self-reliant communities e that can
feed, clothe, shelter themselves.
5.4. Define limits of resource extraction and pollution (ecological
reform)
The economics and politics behind this idea might be complicated, but the science is quite clear: we cannot continue to extract
natural resources indefinitely to feed economic growth
(Bleischewitz et al., 2009; IEA, 2009; Meadows et al., 1972); and the
waste resulting from production and consumption is harming the
planet upon which we depend (IPCC, 2007; Rockström et al., 2009).
We thus need to set ecological limits to how much and how fast we
extract and pollute. A start is to place a moratorium on nonrenewable materials that are getting exhausted as well as restrictions on pollutants that are harmful to the environment and
human health. This should be complemented with strategies for
absolute reductions in material throughput, and a shift towards
cultivation and use of renewable resources where needed. A review
of the concept of waste is needed, which should involve reduction
in waste generation and prioritization of reusable and recyclable
materials over non-reusable alternatives. Cultural and technical
changes, such as quality assurance for product reusability, reparability, durability, sharing, could have substantial impact in
reducing need for additional resource use. Guiding policy concepts
such as the Sound Material Cycle Society by Japan (Hotta, 2012) are
good starts. The climate change debate also becomes even more
relevant under these circumstances e specifically with emerging
knowledge that currently accepted targets for reduction of greenhouse gases under the Kyoto Protocol (which in themselves are not
being met) are not nearly enough!
Several researchers have proposed facilitators to slow down
resource extraction and pollution. An example is the approach
of ecological tax reform (Jackson, 2009). It suggests that taxes should
be shifted away from economic goods to economic bads e for
example a policy shift away from taxing income to taxing resource
consumption and pollution. (Again, the burden should not be on
consumers.) Such policies should emphasize the value of virgin
materials, non-renewable resources, regeneration pace of renewable
materials, heavy pollutants, etc. Complementarily the reform should
remove disincentives for reform e such as perverse subsidies on
fossil fuels. While such reform can see relative reductions, the economic system needs to be brought to within safe ecological limits.
It remains unclear how to establish ecological limits. This is an
area where science and research could be very instrumental, and
22
L. Akenji / Journal of Cleaner Production 63 (2014) 13e23
where establishing a policy-science interface could facilitate things.
There are emerging examples already that could guide government
policy in staying within ecological limits: the concepts of planetary
boundaries e earth-system processes which human activity must
operate within their limits in order to avoid reaching irreversible
tipping points (Rockström et al., 2009) e and the ecological footprint e a measure of how consumption of natural capital contrasts
with the planet’s regenerative capacity (Wackernagel and Rees,
1996). There are still scientific and technical challenges to fully
deploying these theoretical approaches, however, policy messages
and instructive directions for natural resource policy can already be
clearly discerned. The challenge is to reduce our footprint on the
planet, and to operate within safe planetary boundaries.
6. Conclusion
Green consumerism uses the same system of materialism
which has been diagnosed as unsustainable and which puts the
onus upon the consumer to take charge of the problem, despite
the demonstration that in the current capitalist system the consumer is not king and that it would need substantial macro
changes and systemic transformation to achieve the shift to SC.
This is consumer scapegoatism. The argument does not relinquish
the consumer of his/her responsibility, of which there are many;
rather it recognises the limits to green consumerism as a driver of
sustainability and highlights the risks that continuous consumerism, albeit green, could drive the planetary system beyond
recoverable limits of resource extraction, social dissatisfaction and
rampant pollution.
The AttitudeseFacilitatorseInfrastructure (AFI) framework
provides a comprehensive approach to designing policies for sustainable consumption. It proposes three elements that operate in
concert to enable sustainable consumption at a systems level: the
right attitude from stakeholders; facilitators to enable actions
reflect attitudes; and appropriate infrastructure that would make
sustainable lifestyles the default option. Policy framing, based on
the AFI framework would integrate the following characteristics:
i. Engage all stakeholders; allocation of roles in policy should
reflect stakeholder salience
ii. Provide agency, supported by training and education
iii. Recognise the critical role of social and physical infrastructure
iv. Tap into local resources (e.g. skills, knowledge, renewable
material, etc) to build community wealth rather that individualistic material accumulation
v. Be dynamic, to be able to move the system from current
status through a transition
vi. Lead to overall decrease in consumption levels while
providing equity
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