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 - Mathai, Manu V. A1 - Isenhour, Cindy A1 - Stevis, Dimitris A1 - Vergragt, Philip A1 - Bengtsson, Magnus A1 - Lorek, Sylvia A1 - Mortensen, Lars Fogh A1 - Coscieme, Luca A1 - Scott, David A1 - Waheed, Ambreen A1 - Alfredsson, Eva T1 - The Political Economy of (Un)Sustainable Production and Consumption: A Multidisciplinary Synthesis for Research and Action JF - Resources, Conservation and Recycling N2 - Despite widespread recognition of the need to transition toward more sustainable production and consumption and numerous initiatives to that end, global resource extraction and corresponding socio-ecological degradation continue to grow. Understanding the causes of this persistent failure is a necessary step towards more effective action. This article contributes to that understanding by synthesizing theory and evidence that links unsustainable production-consumption systems to power and inequality. While sustainable consumption and production research and action mostly focuses on technological or behavioral change, the socio-ecological inequalities driving production-consumption systems built into the organization of our global political economy, remain largely overlooked. In response, we propose a structural political economy orientation that seeks explicitly to reduce these inequalities and advance environmental justice and, thus, create the conditions for sustainable production-consumption systems. We then propose three important arenas of research and action towards sustainable production-consumption systems: justice, governance, and co-production of knowledge and action. These arenas, collectively and individually, can serve as entry points to study and act on the dynamics of (un)sustainable production-consumption systems. This can be done at the micro level, with respect to specific commodity chains or systems of provisioning, or at meso and macro levels with respect to national and global production networks. Our proposed orientation helps distinguish research and practice proposals into those emphasizing management and compensation resulting often in persistence of unsustainability, from those proffering structural changes in unsustainable production-consumption systems. We invite critique and collaboration to develop this research and action agenda further. Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2020.105265 ER -