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Transforming Consumption: from Decoupling, to Behavior Change, to System Changes for Sustainable Consumption

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Transforming Consumption: from Decoupling, to Behavior Change, to System Changes for Sustainable Consumption UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Previously Published Works Title Transforming Consumption: From Decoupling, to Behavior Change, to System Changes for Sustainable Consumption Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7qn670bv Journal Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 40(1) ISSN 1543-5938 Authors O'Rourke, D Lollo, N Publication Date 2015 DOI 10.1146/annurev-environ-102014-021224 Peer reviewed eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California EG40CH09-ORourke ARI 11 October 2015 12:38 ANNUAL REVIEWS Further Click here to view this article's online features: • Download figures as PPT slides • Navigate linked references • Download citations Transforming Consumption: • Explore related articles • Search keywords From Decoupling, to Behavior Change, to System Changes for Sustainable Consumption Dara O’Rourke1 and Niklas Lollo2 1Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, 2Energy and Resources Group, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California, 94720; email: [email protected] Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour. 2015. 40:233–59 Keywords First published online as a Review in Advance on sustainable consumption, efficiency, decoupling, behavior change, September 11, 2015 sustainability transition, postgrowth economics The Annual Review of Environment and Resources is online at environ.annualreviews.org Abstract This article’s doi: Consumption, although often considered an individual choice, is deeply in- 10.1146/annurev-environ-102014-021224 grained in behaviors, cultures, and institutions, and is driven and supported Copyright c 2015 by Annual Reviews. by corporate and government practices. Consumption is also at the heart All rights reserved of many of our most critical ecological, health, and social problems. What is referred to broadly as sustainable consumption has primarily focused on making consumption more efficient and gradually decoupling it from energy and resource use. We argue for the need to focus sustainable consumption initiatives on the key impact areas of consumption—transport, housing, en- Access provided by University of California - Berkeley on 11/09/15. For personal use only. Annu. Rev. Environ. Resourc. 2015.40:233-259. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org ergy use, and food—and at deeper levels of system change. To meet the scale of the sustainability challenges we face, interventions and policies must move from relative decoupling via technological improvements, to strate- gies to change the behavior of individual consumers, to broader initiatives to change systems of production and consumption. We seek to connect these emerging literatures on behavior change, structural interventions, and sustainability transitions to arrive at integrated frameworks for learning, it- eration, and scaling of sustainability innovations. We sketch the outlines of research and practice that offer potentials for system changes for truly sustainable consumption. 233 EG40CH09-ORourke ARI 11 October 2015 12:38 Contents THE CONSUMPTION-SUSTAINABILITY DILEMMA . 234 EnvironmentalImpacts......................................................... 234 HealthandSocialImpacts....................................................... 235 InequalityandJustice........................................................... 235 SUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION AS DECOUPLING . 235 Technological Efficiency and Decoupling . 236 GreeningMarketsandGrowth.................................................. 236 THE LIMITS OF WEAK SUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION . 237 Growth in Population and Affluence . 237 The Scale and Scope Required . 240 AFocusonStrongSustainableConsumption.................................... 241 FROMINDIVIDUALTOSTRUCTURALCHANGE............................ 242 Individual Logics . 242 IntegratingBehavioralandStructuralChange.................................... 245 BehaviorChangeofStructuralActors............................................ 245 Business Logics. 245 Government Logics . 246 ChangingCulture.............................................................. 247 ACHIEVINGSYSTEMCHANGE............................................... 247 SystemDynamicsinaTransition................................................ 248 EconomicTransitionStrategies................................................. 249 Crisis-DrivenTransformation................................................... 250 Equity, Development, and Leapfrogging . 250 TowardPostgrowthNewEconomics............................................ 251 CONCLUSIONS................................................................. 251 THE CONSUMPTION-SUSTAINABILITY DILEMMA We face a deep cultural and social dilemma: One of the central goals of individuals, corporations, and governments—increased consumption—is also at the heart of our greatest ecological, equality, and health risks (1). As William Greider and many others have warned, “if industrial growth proceeds according to its accepted patterns, everyone is imperiled. Yet, if industrialization is not allowed to proceed, a majority of the world’s citizens are consigned to a permanent second-class Access provided by University of California - Berkeley on 11/09/15. For personal use only. Annu. Rev. Environ. Resourc. 2015.40:233-259. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org status, deprived of the industrial artifacts that enhance life’s comfort, the tools that multiply human choices” (2, p. 13). Early concerns about the limits to growth—the contradictions inherent in the goal of infinite growth on a finite planet (3, 4)—particularly its assimilative capacity, have been compounded with newer concerns about the limits of growth—how consumption-led growth consistently fails to satisfy human development and societal goals (1, 3, 5). Global demographic and consumption trends indicate that we face major environmental and human health risks if consumption and production systems continue on current trajectories. Environmental Impacts Since 1980, we have exceeded many key ecological indicators (6, 7). Current rates of extinction are 100 to 1,000 times those of normal conditions (8); approximately 60% of the world’s ecosystem 234 O’Rourke · Lollo EG40CH09-ORourke ARI 11 October 2015 12:38 services have been degraded or overused (1, 9). In 2009, an influential study asserted that “three of nine interlinked planetary boundaries have already been overstepped” (8, p. 472). These planetary boundaries, including biodiversity, climate change and nitrogen cycle disruption, are thresholds for environmental degradation processes that put multiple species at risk. On climate change alone, the data are overwhelming. Since 1990—the base year for many inter- national agreements—global emissions have risen nearly 60% (10), with consumption-based emis- sions rising at a rate of approximately 3% per year (11). These increased greenhouse gas emissions are overwhelming the planet’s assimilative capacity (12, 13), driving unpredictable climatic shifts, rising global temperatures, increasing droughts, and increasing frequency and severity of storms. Health and Social Impacts In addition to environmental risks, affluent nations are suffering from increasing rates of so-called lifestyle diseases such as obesity, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, childhood cancers, and fertility problems (1, 3, 14, 15). The dominance of positional consumerism—consumption driven by con- cerns for status and social competition rather than utility—has left individuals with greater levels of stress and dissatisfaction (1). A somewhat controversial literature points to indicators suggesting a decreasing quality of life associated with economic growth beyond certain thresholds (1, 16, 17). This research calls into question the assumption of an unending straight-line relationship between economic affluence and well-being (6). Inequality and Justice Furthermore, the benefits—economic development, material possessions, etc.—and costs— pollution, waste disposal, hazardous jobs, etc.—of resource use have also been unjustly distributed (12). Environmental justice researchers have documented the inequitable distributions of environ- mental “bads,” calling into question the ability of economic growth to fairly benefit all communities and address distributional inequities in national, international, and intergenerational contexts (12). SUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION AS DECOUPLING In response to the consumption-sustainability dilemma, a range of initiatives have emerged within the past 25 years under the broad rubric of sustainable consumption. This field was defined by participants at an international gathering in Oslo in 1995 as the “use of goods and services that respond to basic needs and bring a better quality of life, while minimizing the use of natural resources, toxic materials and emissions of waste and pollutants over the life cycle, so as not to jeopardize the needs of future generations” (18, p. 53). They go further to specify that, “the sustainability of consumption acts is defined by the degree to which individual acts ...contribute Access provided by University of California - Berkeley on 11/09/15. For personal use only. Annu. Rev. Environ. Resourc. 2015.40:233-259. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org to creating or sustaining external conditions that allow all human beings to meet their objective needs today and in the future” (18). International, national, and local sustainable consumption initiatives have taken up this effort by focusing primarily on improving the material and energy efficiency of products and production processes, with the overarching goal of decoupling economic
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