Middlemiss, Lucie

Sustainability Research Institute <Leeds>

Sustainable Consumption and Responsibility.

Putting Individual Sustainability in Context

Leeds

2008

This paper reframes the understanding of responsibility within sustainable consumption in the light of empirical and theoretical work on individuals engaged in community action. The paper compares the sustainable consumption, ecological citizenship and environmental justice literatures theoretically to further develop thinking on responsibility and individual consumption. Mainstream sustainable consumption policy and research have tended to focus on means of persuading individuals to take on responsibility for the environmental damage caused by unsustainable lifestyles. Environmental justice has by contrast tended to emphasise structural factors that lock individuals into unjust situations, where their rights are violated. Historically, citizenship studies have emphasised either the rights or responsibility of the individual in society. By exploring differing perspectives on rights and responsibility within these contrasting fields, a broader interpretation of responsibility in sustainable consumption is developed. This recognises both the responsibility of the individual for sustainable behaviour and the limitations for individual action inherent in the context in which the individual operates. In addition it differentiates between individual responsibilities given people′s ability to engage with change and the nature of the context in which they operate. A conceptual framework based on this thinking and on empirical research in the area is presented to summarise these ideas

Contents

Abstract

About the Author

Introduction

Empirical perspectives on responsibility

Theoretical perspectives on responsibility in Sustainable Consumption,

Ecological Citizenship and Environmental Justice

A framework for responsibility in sustainable consumption

Conclusion

Acknowledgements

References

↑ Middlemiss2008-SustainableConsumptionandResponsibility.pdf