Sustainable consumption is a controversial 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.
Tim Jackson is an ecological economist and writer. Since 2016 he has been Director of the Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity (CUSP). CUSP is a multidisciplinary research centre which aims to understand the economic, social and political dimensions of sustainable prosperity. Its guiding vision for prosperity is one in which people everywhere have the capability to flourish as human beings – within the ecological and resource constraints of a finite planet.