@article{ReischEberleLorek2013,
  author    = {Reisch, Lucia and Eberle, Ulrike and Lorek, Sylvia},
  title     = {Sustainable food consumption: an overview of contemporary issues and policies},
  series = {Sustainability: Science, Practice \& Policy},
  journal   = {Sustainability: Science, Practice \& Policy},
  doi       = {10.1080/15487733.2013.11908111},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:hbz:836-opus-106335},
  pages     = {7 -- 25},
  year      = {2013},
  abstract  = {Contemporary food production and consumption cannot be regarded as sustainable and raises problems with its wide scope involving diverse actors. Moreover, in the face of demographic change and a growing global population, sus-tainability problems arising from food systems will likely become more serious in the future. For example, agricultural production must deal with the impacts of climate change, increasingly challenging land-use conflicts, and rising health and social costs on both individual and societal levels. The unsustainability of current arrangements arises from the industrialization and globalization of agriculture and food processing, the shift of consumption patterns toward more dietary animal protein, the emergence of modern food styles that entail heavily processed products, the growing gap on a global scale between rich and poor, and the paradoxical lack of food security amid an abundance of food. These factors are attributable to national and international policies and regulations, as well as to prevalent business prac-tices and, in particular, consumers' values and habits. The most effective ways for affluent societies to reduce the environmental impact of their diets are to reduce consumption of meat and dairy products (especially beef), to favor organic fruits and vegetables, and to avoid goods that have been transported by air on both individual and institu-tional levels (e.g., public procurement, public catering). In examining the unsustainability of the current food system this article reviews the pertinent literature to derive a working definition of sustainable food consumption, outlines the major issues and impacts of current food-consumption practices, and discusses various policy interventions, including information-based instruments, market-based initiatives, direct regulations, and "nudges." It concludes with a call for integrative, cross-sectoral, and population-wide policies that address the full range of drivers of unsustainable food production and consumption.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{BengtssonAlfredssonCohenetal.2018,
  author    = {Bengtsson, Magnus and Alfredsson, Eva and Cohen, Maurie and Lorek, Sylvia and Schroeder, Patrick},
  title     = {Transforming systems of consumption and production for achieving the sustainable development goals: moving beyond efficiency},
  series = {Sustainability Science},
  volume    = {13},
  journal   = {Sustainability Science},
  number    = {6},
  doi       = {10.1007/s11625-018-0582-1},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:hbz:836-opus-106615},
  pages     = {1533 -- 1547},
  year      = {2018},
  abstract  = {The United Nations formulated the sustainable development goals (SDGs) in 2015 as a comprehensive global policy framework for addressing the most pressing social and environmental challenges currently facing humanity. In this paper, we analyse SDG 12, which aims to ''ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.'' Despite long-standing political recognition of this objective, and ample scientific evidence both on its importance and on the efficacy of various ways of promoting it, the SDGs do not provide clear goals or effective guidance on how to accomplish this urgently needed transformation. Drawing from the growing body of research on sustainable consumption and production (SCP), the paper identifies two dominant vantage points—one focused on promoting more efficient production methods and products (mainly through technological improvement and informed consumer choice) and the other stressing the need to consider also overall volumes of consumption, distributional issues, and related social and institutional changes. We label these two approaches efficiency and systemic. Research shows that while the efficiency approach contains essential elements of a transition to sustainability, it is by itself highly unlikely to bring about sustainable outcomes. Concomitantly, research also finds that volumes of consumption and production are closely associated with environmental impacts, indicating a need to curtail these volumes in ways that safeguard social sustainability, which is unlikely to be possible without a restructuring of existing socioeconomic arrangements. Analysing how these two perspectives are reflected in the SDGs framework, we find that in its current conception, it mainly relies on the efficiency approach. On the basis of this assessment, we conclude that the SDGs represent a partial and inadequate conceptualisation of SCP which will hamper implementation. Based on this determination, this paper provides some suggestions on how governments and other actors involved in SDGs operationalisation could more effectively pursue SCP from a systemic standpoint and use the transformation of systems of consumption and production as a lever for achieving multiple sustainability objectives.},
  language  = {en}
}