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Researching the Future: How Can we Promote Sustainable Consumption? Can we promote sustainable Prof Cathy Urquhart consumption? Sustainable and Ethical Enterprise Group the Future: Can we promote ##esrcfestival #mmususcon sustainable Overview • What are an organisations options when choosing how to respond to a more sustainable world? • What do we mean by sustainable consumption? • What needs to happen in order to have sustainable consumption ? • What are the research needs of businesses when it comes to sustainability? 2 Figure 1. CVF with sustainability focus. Source: Robbins and Page (2012: 177) Tuesday, May 23, 2017 3 Dilemma of Growth • Growth is unsustainable, de-growth is unstable • Downward pressure on employment, people lose jobs, output of economy falls, public spending is cut, ability to service public debt is diminished spiral of recession Green New Deal • Keynesian response – tax cuts and public spending to stimulate consumer demand • Economic recovery needs investment • Target investment towards energy saving, • Low carbon infrastructures and ecological protection • Green stimulus offers jobs and economic recovery in the short term, energy security and technological innovation in the medium term and ultimately sustainability – still growth • Need different macroeconomic structure • ….. The (non segmented) Green consumer McDonald et al 2012 • The consumption undertaken by private households accounts for a large proportion of the economy’s environmental impact (30-40%) • Previous dichotomous classifications in marketing literature, grey and green, recyclers and non recyclers, etc the consumption undertaken by private households accounts for a large proportion of the economy’s environmental 6 Translators • Translators are green in some aspects of their lives and grey in others. They do not necessarily think about sustainability in a holistic way. Not motivated by a political agenda but by a sense of trying to do what they perceive to be the right thing. • If they are made aware of a concrete action that they can take and they can see a clear benefit from doing it, then they are apt to undertake it: • Translators translate awareness into specific actions Tuesday, May 23, 2017 7 Exceptors • Lifestyle is likely to be underpinned by, and designed to implement, a personal philosophy of consumption, such as, ‘I don’t believe in consumerism’ • They all have at least one aspect of their lives in which they behave like grey consumers. This exception to their otherwise coherent sustainable lifestyles is likely to be a relatively small but conscious lapse into mainstream consumerism. Tuesday, May 23, 2017 8 Selectors • Selectors select an aspect of sustainable consumption on which to focus. For example, • They may be avid recyclers or pay a premium for green energy or sponsor a child • This group is attracted or motivated by a single issue but is not interested in sustainability in a holistic way. • Largest in terms of numbers Tuesday, May 23, 2017 9 Tuesday, May 23, 2017 10 Tuesday, May 23, 2017 11 A critique of sustainable consumption • First, economic elites redefine the nature of the problem from political to one of individual consumption (for example, global warming stems from consumers failing to cultivate a sustainable lifestyle). • Next, economic elites promote the idea that the only viable solution is for consumers to change their behavior. • Third, new markets are created in order to turn this solution into a material reality Tuesday, May 23, 2017 12 “The responsible consumption myth promotes the idea that governments can never achieve harmony between competing economic and social or environmental goals, and that this instead requires a global community of morally enlightened consumers who are empowered to make a difference through the marketplace” Markus Giesler and Ela Veresiu 2014 Tuesday, May 23, 2017? 13 In Conclusion • Organisations can focus internally or externally, and on efficiency or innovation..the competing values framework still holds • The ‘green consumer’ is a complex beast not necessarily amenable to simple segmentation • There is a school of thought that the notion of sustainable consumption shifts the responsibility for sustainability on to individuals and markets rather than society as a whole Tuesday, May 23, 2017 14