TY - JOUR A1 - Fuchs, Doris A1 - Di Giulio, Antonietta A1 - Glaab, Katharina A1 - Lorek, Sylvia A1 - Maniates, Michael A1 - Princen, Thomas A1 - Ropke, Inge T1 - Power: the missing element in sustainable consumption and absolute reductions research and action JF - Journal of Cleaner Production N2 - In this essay, we aim to demonstrate the value of a power lens on consumption and absolute reductions. Specifically, we illuminate what we perceive to be a troublesome pattern of neglect of questions of power in research and action on sustainable consumption and absolute reductions. In pursuit of our objectives, we delineate how many of the informal and implicit “theories of social change” of scholars and activists in sustainable consumption and sustainable development fail to address power in a sufficiently explicit, comprehensive and differentiated manner and how that failure translates into insufficient understandings of the drivers of consumption and the potential for and barriers to absolute reductions. Second, we develop the contours of a power lens on sustainable consumption. Third, we illustrate the value of such a power lens, with a particular focus on the case of meat consumption. KW - absolute reduction KW - sustainable consumption KW - power KW - meat KW - social change Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:hbz:836-opus-106438 UR - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652615001109 VL - 132 SP - 298 EP - 307 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Alfredsson, Eva A1 - Bentsson, Magnus A1 - Szejnwald Brown, Halina A1 - Eisenhour, Cindy A1 - Lorek, Sylvia A1 - Stevis, Dimitris A1 - Vergragt, Philip T1 - Why achieving the Paris Agreement requires reduced overall consumption and production JF - Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy N2 - Technological solutions to the challenge of dangerous climate change are urgent and necessary but to be effective they need to be accompanied by reductions in the total level of consumption and production of goods and services. This is for three reasons. First, private consumption and its associated production are among the key drivers of greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions, especially among highly emitting industrialized economies. There is no evidence that decoupling of the economy from GHG emissions is possible at the scale and speed needed. Second, investments in more sustainable infrastructure, including renewable energy, needed in coming decades will require extensive amounts of energy, largely from fossil sources, which will use up a significant share of the two-degree carbon budget. Third, improving the standard of living of the world’s poor will consume a major portion of the available carbon allowance. The scholarly community has a responsibility to put the issue of consumption and the associated production on the research and policy agenda. KW - sustainable consumption and production KW - Paris agreement KW - climate change KW - Agenda 2030 KW - sustainable investments Y1 - 2018 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:hbz:836-opus-106448 UR - https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15487733.2018.1458815 SN - 1548-7733 VL - 14 IS - 1 SP - 1 EP - 5 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Bengtsson, Magnus A1 - Alfredsson, Eva A1 - Cohen, Maurie A1 - Lorek, Sylvia A1 - Schroeder, Patrick T1 - Transforming systems of consumption and production for achieving the sustainable development goals: moving beyond efficiency JF - Sustainability Science N2 - 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. KW - sustainable consumption and production KW - SDG implementation KW - systemic approaches KW - public policy Y1 - 2018 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:hbz:836-opus-106615 UR - https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11625-018-0582-1 VL - 13 IS - 6 SP - 1533 EP - 1547 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Laamanen, Mikko A1 - Wahlen, Stefan A1 - Lorek, Sylvia T1 - A moral householding perspective on the sharing economy JF - Journal of Cleaner Production N2 - In this paper, we scrutinise the sharing economy from a moral householding perspective and evaluate the moral justifications for a sustainable form of the sharing economy. We consider the emergence of normative moral justifications through householding practices that rest on local mobilisation of people in defence of communities and commitments against the adverse impacts of neoliberal market capitalism. Our perspective draws on Karl Polanyi's conceptualisation of householding, that is, autarchic, communistic provision in a closed community. Using timebanking as an example, we illustrate how a moral sharing economy can be mobilised in collective battles against the current neoliberal system of economic crisis. We contribute to the amassing sharing economy literature emphasising a central, yet missing element of the current discourse: householding as practices creating self-sufficiency and autonomy as well as combining both kin and stranger. KW - moral economy KW - sharing economy KW - householding KW - Polanyi KW - timebanking Y1 - 2018 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:hbz:836-opus-106917 UR - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652618325733 VL - 202 SP - 1220 EP - 1227 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Martin, Maria A1 - ..., ... A1 - ..., ... A1 - Lorek, Sylvia A1 - ..., ... T1 - Ten new insights in climate science 2021: a horizon scan JF - Global Sustainability N2 - A synthesis is made of 10 topics within climate research, where there have been significant advances since January 2020. The insights are based on input from an international open call with broad disciplinary scope. Findings include: (1) the options to still keep global warming below 1.5 °C; (2) the impact of non-CO2 factors in global warming; (3) a new dimension of fire extremes forced by climate change; (4) the increasing pressure on interconnected climate tipping elements; (5) the dimensions of climate justice; (6) political challenges impeding the effectiveness of carbon pricing; (7) demand-side solutions as vehicles of climate mitigation; (8) the potentials and caveats of nature-based solutions; (9) how building resilience of marine ecosystems is possible; and (10) that the costs of climate change mitigation policies can be more than justified by the benefits to the health of humans and nature. Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:hbz:836-opus-160666 PB - Cambridge University Press ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Spangenberg, Joachim H. A1 - Lorek, Sylvia T1 - Who cares (for whom) JF - Frontiers in Sustainability Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:hbz:836-opus-160675 PB - Frontiers Media ER - TY - BOOK A1 - Fuchs, Doris A1 - Sahakian, Marlyne A1 - Gumpert, Tobias A1 - Gumpert, Antonietta A1 - Maniates, Michael A1 - Lorek, Sylvia A1 - Graf, Antonia T1 - Consumption Corridors - Living a Good Life within Sustainable Limits N2 - Consumption Corridors: Living a Good Life within Sustainable Limits explores how to enhance peoples’ chances to live a good life in a world of ecological and social limits. Rejecting familiar recitations of problems of ecological decline and planetary boundaries, this compact book instead offers a spirited explication of what everyone desires: a good life. Fundamental concepts of the good life are explained and explored, as are forces that threaten the good life for all. The remedy, says the book’s seven international authors, lies with the concept of consumption corridors, enabled by mechanisms of citizen engagement and deliberative democracy. Across fve concise chapters, readers are invited into conversation about how wellbeing can be enriched by social change that joins “needs satisfaction” with consumerist restraint, social justice, and environmental sustainability. In this endeavour, lower limits of consumption that ensure minimal needs satisfaction for all are important, and enjoy ample precedent. But upper limits to consumption, argue the authors, are equally essential, and attainable, especially in those domains where limits enhance rather than undermine essential freedoms. Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:hbz:836-opus-160579 SN - 9780367748722 PB - Routledge CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Sahakian, Marlyne A1 - Fuchs, Doris A1 - Lorek, Sylvia A1 - DiGiulio, Antonietta T1 - Advancing the concept of consumption corridors and exploring its implications JF - Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy N2 - As a salutogenic concept, “consumption corridors” aims to support what is necessary for sustainable wellbeing to be achieved in relation to the Earth system, with a deep consideration for justice and equity. Living in consumption corridors is a representation of everyday life whereby people live within limits, so that all people – now and in the future – can access what is needed to live a good life. In this special issue, a series of scholars and practitioners have come together to further develop the concept, engage with its ethodological implications, and relate it to consumption domains and policy implications. We begin by introducing how the concept emerged, in relation to the complexity of grappling with the societal transformations required for achieving more sustainable forms of consumption. We then present the different contributions, which demonstrate the importance of considering both maximum and minimum consumption standards, the relevance of human-need theories, as well as the difference between achieving wellbeing and the means necessary for doing so. We conclude by opening up to areas that merit further deliberation: how to relate consumption corridors to everyday-life dynamics, but also to the critical question of power relations at play in implementing consumption corridors. KW - consumption corridors KW - sustainable consumption KW - limits KW - wellbeing KW - needs Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:hbz:836-opus-160646 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Lorek, Sylvia T1 - Equity within ecological limits - Grand Challenge for Sustainable Consumption JF - Frontiers in Sustainability Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:hbz:836-opus-160657 PB - Frontiers Media ER -