Sustainable Consumption Ecology and Fair Trade

<p>This timely volume discusses the debates concerning sustainable consumption and the environment.</p><p>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.</p><p><em>Sustainable Consumption</em> takes an interdisciplinary approach and is well-balanced, presenting theoretical debates as well as empirical evidence in order to:</p><ul> <p> </p> <li>characterize the basic problems and determiners of an evolution towards, and the obstacles to, more sustainable consumption patterns</li> <li>produce knowledge on the profile of consumers sensitive, and not sensitive, to these issues</li> <li>explore realistic modes of interaction and innovation for changes in which consumers are involved.</li> </ul><p>This text will be of interest to students and scholars of politics, environment studies and sociology.</p> <p>1. Introduction Sustainable Consumption: A Short List of Contradictions <strong>Part 1: Consumption: What Kind of a Problem for Sustainable Development? </strong>2. Sustainable Household Consumption: Fact, Future or Fantasy? 3. Epistemological Approach of Consumption: How to Attribute Power to the Consumers? 4. Unsustainable Consumption in Social and Psychological Context 5. Sustainable Consumption and Sustainable Welfare 6. What’s Wrong with Consumption: Overconsumption, Underconsumption, Misconsumption? 7. Consumption: A Field for Resistance and Moral Containment 8. Fair Trade and Economic Growth <strong>Part 2: Who Are the (Ir)responsible Consumers and Why? </strong>9. Belgian Households and Sustainable Consumption: Capacity and Incapacity of Action 10. The Dynamic of Sustainable Consumption: Results of Qualitative Surveys 11. What Justifications for a Sustainable Consumption? 12. Consumption as a Solidarity-Based Commitment: The Case of Oxfam Worldshops' Customers <strong>Part 3: How Can (or do) Consumers and Citizens Influence Producers?</strong> 13. Marketing Ethical Products: What Can We Learn from Fair-Trade Consumer Behaviour in Belgium 14. Can Fair Trade be Extended to Massive Sales? 15. Impact of the Construction of Quality Networks at Farmer’s Level: The Example of Fair Trade Cotton 16. Changing Companies for Changing the Consumer's Behaviour, Application of the Actionalist Theory</p>