The Earthscan Reader on Sustainable Consumption
Edited By Tim Jackson, University of Surrey, UK
Paperback
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.
'A comprehensive introduction provides an excellent guide through the complex arena of sustainable consumption.'
Magazine of the IEMA
CONTENTS (Expand Contents)
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
TIM JACKSON is Professor of Sustainable Development at the University of Surrey in the UK and Director of the ESRC Research Group in Lifestyles, Values and Environment (RESOLVE).