Sustainable Consumption Ecology And Fair Trade

This timely volume discusses the debates concerning sustainable consumption and the environment. Sustainable consumption stands as a wide objective that attracts a growing attention within sustainable development policy circles and academic research. The contributors examine a range of interesting and relevant case studies including: household energy consumption, sustainable welfare, Fair Trade, Oxfam Worldshops, cotton farming and consumer organizations. Sustainable Consumption takes an interdisciplinary approach and is well-balanced, presenting theoretical debates as well as empirical evidence in order to: characterize the basic problems and determiners of an evolution towards, and the obstacles to, more sustainable consumption patterns produce knowledge on the profile of consumers sensitive, and not sensitive, to these issues explore realistic modes of interaction and innovation for changes in which consumers are involved. This text will be of interest to students and scholars of politics, environment studies and sociology.

Focuses on providing answers to the question of how food production and consumption systems can stay within the limits of the carrying capacity of our natural environment. This work also considers the challenges of food security and nutrition in the context of sustainability and a growing world population.

Presenting a contemporary reflection on ethical and sustainable consumption, this insightful Research Handbook offers discussions on the challenges and complexity of living an ethical and sustainable life, and for the researchers who study them. Featuring cutting-edge, multidisciplinary research from authors with unique perspectives and expert insights, this Research Handbook takes a deeper look at the past, present, and future of ethical and sustainable consumption.

The authors critically evaluate the fair trade movement's role in pursuing a more just and environmentally sustainable society. Using fair trade as a case study of the shift toward non-state forms of governance, they focus on its role not only as a regulatory tool, but as a catalyst for broader social and political transformation.

In the face of climate change and resulting environmental and social crises, sustainable consumption has become a widely discussed issue and a key plank of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The majority of the sustainable consumption research uses the SDG framework, but this only serves to reinforce an individualistic, efficiency-based approach and it does not sufficiently cover the specific situation of transition economies. In contrast, this volume promotes a collective approach to sustainable consumption, and combines general theoretical issues with empirical examples from the Polish economy. The first part of the book presents a theoretical approach to collective consumption which has the core concepts of justice and human nature at its heart. This approach emphasises the role of collective rationality and categorises aspects of sustainable consumption as a common and public good. The second part investigates diversified aspects of sustainability, including socio-economic inequalities as barriers to sustainable consumption, consumer sovereignty in the context of current legal regulations, and the impact on employees of changes to the types and conditions of work. It also examines the sharing economy and the legal conditions of its development. The third part adopts a political perspective focusing on the state policies enhancing the role of investment in public goods, analyses photovoltaic programmes which promote prosumption and indicates challenges to sustainability faced by many countries such as the energy crisis, sustainable finance, and cooperative platforms. This book will be of great interest to researchers and scholars interested in sustainability and consumption issues in economics, management, law, public administration, and political science.

Green lifestyles and ethical consumption have become increasingly popular strategies in moving towards environmentally-friendly societies and combating global poverty. Where previously environmentalists saw excess consumption as central to the problem, green consumerism now places consumption at the heart of the solution. However, ethical and sustainable consumption are also important forms of central to the creation and maintenance of class distinction. Green Consumption scrutinizes the emergent phenomenon of what this book terms eco-chic: a combination of lifestyle politics, environmentalism, spirituality, beauty and health. Eco-chic connects ethical, sustainable and elite consumption. It is increasingly part of the identity kit of certain sections of society, who seek to combine taste and style with care for personal wellness and the environment. This book deals with eco-chic as a set of activities, an ideological framework and a popular marketing strategy, offering a critical examination of its manifestations in both the global North and South. The diverse case studies presented in this book range from Basque sheep cheese production and Ghanaian Afro-chic hairstyles to Asian tropical spa culture and Dutch fair-trade jewellery initiatives. The authors assess the ways in which eco-chic, with its apparent paradox of consumption and idealism, can make a genuine contribution to solving some of the most pressing problems of our time.

A not-so-quiet revolution seems to be occurring in wealthy capitalist societies - supermarkets selling ‘guilt free’ Fairtrade products; lifestyle TV gurus exhorting us to eat less, buy local and go green; neighbourhood action groups bent on ‘swopping not shopping’. And this is happening not at the margins of society but at its heart, in the shopping centres and homes of ordinary people. Today we are seeing a mainstreaming of ethical concerns around consumption that reflects an increasing anxiety with - and accompanying sense of responsibility for - the risks and excesses of contemporary lifestyles in the ‘global north’. This collection of essays provides a range of critical tools for understanding the turn towards responsible or conscience consumption and, in the process, interrogates the notion that we can shop our way to a more ethical, sustainable future. Written by leading international scholars from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds - and drawing upon examples from across the globe - Ethical Consumption makes a major contribution to the still fledgling field of ethical consumption studies. This collection is a must-read for anyone interested in the relationship between consumer culture and contemporary social life.

As sales of fair-trade goods explode across the globe, Fair Trade and the Citizen-Consumer provides a timely analysis of the organizations, institutions and grassroots networks behind this growing movement. Drawing on examples from the UK, Sweden and USA, this book moves away from models of individualized consumer choice and instead explores the collective cultures and practices that motivate and sustain fair-trade consumer behaviour. Although the fair-trade citizen-consumer has been called to action and publicly represented as an individual 'voting' in the marketplace, this book reveals how market interventions are editing the choices available to consumers, at the same time as 'Fairtrade Town' consumer networks are flourishing. Offering new and critical insights into the fair-trade success story, this book also contributes to debates about sustainable consumption behaviour and the growth of 'new' forms of political participation and citizenship.