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"Sustainable Consumption: Key Issues provides a concise introduction to the field of sustainable consumption, outlining the contribution of the key disciplines in this multi-disciplinary area, and detailing the way in which both the problem and the potential for solutions are understood. Divided into three key parts, the book begins by introducing the concept of sustainable consumption, outlining the environmental impacts of current consumption trends, and placing these impacts in social context. The central section looks at six contrasting explanations of sustainable consumption in the public domain, detailing the stories that are told about why people act in the way they do. This section also explores the theory and evidence around each of these stories, linking them to a range of disciplines and approaches in the social sciences. The final section takes a broader look at the solutions proposed by sustainable consumption scholars and practitioners, outlining the visions of the future that are put forward to counteract damage to environment and society. Each chapter highlights key authors and real-world examples to encourage students to broaden their understanding of the topic and to think critically about how their daily lives intersect with environmental and ethical issues. Exploring the ways in which critical thinking and an understanding of sustainable consumption can be used in daily life as well as in professional practice, this book is essential reading for students, academics, professionals and policy-makers with an interest in this growing field."--Provided by publisher.

A household is fuel poor when it is unable to afford the level of energy services required to allow its members to live a decent life. From 2010 to 2015, the UK government transformed the politics of fuel poverty, with a new definition ('Low income, high costs' or LIHC), indicators and targets. Using a subjectivity framework to analyse the government documentation around LIHC, I find that: a distinction between poverty and fuel poverty is reinforced by the new politics, resulting in energy efficiency measures being prioritised as the appropriate solution. The austerity maxim of 'helping those most in need' is threaded through this new politics, belying an acceptance that not all fuel poverty can be alleviated. Further, LIHC underplays the role of changing energy costs, which now have no impact on the headline indicator. I argue that this new politics is symbolic, and unlikely to have positive impacts for most fuel poor households.

Sustainable Consumption: Key Issues provides a concise introduction to the field of sustainable consumption, outlining the contribution of the key disciplines in this multi-disciplinary area, and detailing the way in which both the problem and the potential for solutions are understood.

Introduction : power, politics and unsustainable consumption / Lucie Middlemiss, Cindy Isenhour, Mari Martiskainen -- A consuming globalism : on power and the post-Paris Agreement politics of climate and consumption / Cindy Isenhour -- Practice does not make perfect : sustainable consumption, practice theory and the question of power / Dennis Soron -- Sources of power for sustainable consumption : where to look / Doris Fuchs, Sylvia Lorek, Antonietta Di Giulio, Rico Defila -- Pro-environmental behaviour change and governmentality : counter-conduct and the making up of environmental individuals / Tom Hargreaves -- Freedom, autonomy and sustainable behaviours : the politics of designing consumer choice / Tobias Gumbert -- The "double dividend" discourse in sustainable consumption : a critical commentary / Lucie Middlemiss, David Wingate and Anna Wesselink -- Housing as a function of consumption and production in the United Kingdom / Mari Martiskainen -- Power and politics in the (work-life) balance : a mixed methods evaluation of the risks and rewards of downshifting / Jacob Hammond & Emily Huddart Kennedy -- Who participates in community-based sustainable consumption projects and why does it matter? : a constructively critical approach / Manisha Anantharaman, Emily Huddart Kennedy, Lucie Middlemiss and Sarah Bradbury.

With growing awareness of environmental deterioration, atmospheric pollution and resource depletion, the last several decades have brought increased attention and scrutiny to global consumption levels. However, there are significant and well documented limitations associated with current efforts to encourage more sustainable consumption patterns, ranging from informational and time constraints to the highly individualizing effect of market-based participation. This volume, featuring essays solicited from experts engaged in sustainable consumption research from around the world, presents empirical and theoretical illustrations of the various means through which politics and power influence (un)sustainable consumption practices, policies and perspectives. With chapters on compelling topics including collective action, behaviour-change and the transition movement, the authors discuss why current efforts have largely failed to meet environmental targets and explore promising directions for research, policy and practice. Featuring contributions that will help the reader open up politics and power in ways that are accessible and productive and bridge the gaps with current approaches to sustainable consumption, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of sustainable consumption and the politics of sustainability.

Understanding mechanisms of policy engagement and the participation of different actors in urban climate governance is particularly important as cities follow climate emergency declarations with corresponding action, to ensure that inequalities are not exacerbated by climate action. Citizens' juries are a deliberative democracy tool that allows a demographically representative sample of the population to learn about a contested issue from experts, and discuss, debate and develop policy recommendations. Leeds City Council declared a climate emergency in March 2019, compelling the local authority to take serious measures to implement a reduction in carbon emissions to net zero by 2030. A citizens' jury was established by an independent local body, the Leeds Climate Commission, to debate various possible courses of action in response to the declaration. This research critically examined the processes surrounding and embedded in the Leeds citizens' climate jury with a focus on procedural justice and representation justice. Emerging lessons include that recognition of power differentials between various social groups should be carefully considered throughout deliberative processes to ensure representation justice is achieved in decision making. Representation justice demands that those who are included in decision making spaces are able to harness their position to voice their experiences, opinions, hopes and concerns in deciding which trade-offs will be made. In citizens' juries, facilitation style and techniques play a critical role in achieving this participatory parity, alongside other factors. There is potential for important procedural co-benefits to emerge, such as trust-building, place identity and hope for the future.

This paper compares the way people wash dishes in England and in Brazil to contribute to the discussion of how practices are undertaken in different national contexts and by people with different cultural backgrounds in both places, in order to verify if there are different levels of strength in the elements of practice described by Shove et al. (2012). It is based on twelve oral histories, both from Brazilian residents (three Brazilian locals and two English migrants) and English residents (two Brazilian migrants, one English local, and two cross-national couples). This data examines different social conventions and expectations from multiple perspectives, considering procedures, interplay between partners, expected outcomes and items associated to the practice, to name a few. Different social conventions of what is expected from a practice and the culture play a significant role in this dynamic, allowing us also to think about different strategies that could be employed by companies and governments to promote sustainable behaviours. Overall, the analysis provides an original account of social practices, which offers insights in multiple domains, such as consumer behaviour, marketing, sustainability and governance strategy.

In a 2011 contribution to this journal, Walker examined the ways that community is routinely employed in carbon governance, suggesting the need for more critical approaches. Here, we characterize an emerging, critical approach to researching climate change and community in neoliberal contexts, focusing attention principally on the global north, where this body of research has emerged. This work recognizes communities as sites of contestation, difference, tension, and distinction, in which action on climate change can be designed to meet a range of political and public ends. It aims to uncover the political and social context for community action on climate change, to be alert to the power relations inside and outside of communities, and to the context of neoliberalism, including individualism, the will to quantify, and competition. Furthermore, research in this space is committed to understanding both the lived experience of the messy empirical worlds we encounter, and the potential agency coalescing in community responses to climate change. Much of the work to date, discussed here, has focused on communities working on climate change mitigation in the global north, in which the idea of community as a space for governance is gaining traction. We also comment on the positioning of these arguments in the context of long-standing debates in the fields of 'community-based' development, natural resource management, and adaptation in the global South. This discussion establishes a foundation from which to progress learning across fields and geopolitical boundaries, furthering critical thinking on 'community.'

Energy poverty is emerging as a national agenda in the Netherlands. Local authority leadership and action on this agenda, and European Union reporting requirements around the energy transition have aligned to create an opportunity to establish a national agenda on this issue. Early action on energy poverty by local authorities stemmed from their recognition of the value of addressing environmental, health, social welfare and poverty goals through measures to address the problem. In contrast, the experiences of vulnerable energy consumers have limited recognition in national policy. Meanwhile EU requirements for climate reporting include a specification for measuring and monitoring energy poverty. This growing momentum has resulted in an emerging interest in energy poverty as a means to achieve a just transition at a national level, as reflected in the Dutch National Climate and Energy Plan. In this paper, we profile the case of the Netherlands, and outline the opportunity we see for the development of an energy poverty agenda in national energy transition policy, as part of a multi-level energy governance effort. We report on a national stakeholder workshop that we led, linking the lived experience of energy poverty in the Netherlands with policy solutions. Following the clear call for a national policy in this workshop, we also outline a strategy for engagement with energy poverty in the Netherlands, published recently in a white paper on this topic.

The policy area addressing the climate crisis in the UK, 'Net Zero', will affect many aspects of people's everyday life. Given that policy builds from where we are now, which for some (post austerity, and mid cost of living crisis) means in financial crisis, there is work to be done in enabling a socially inclusive Net Zero. In this article, we modify the Bristol Social Exclusion Matrix's four forms of participation for social inclusion, drawing on the existing literature on the social risks of environmental policy, to articulate the risks of social exclusion in transition to Net Zero. This enables us to develop a 'person-centred' approach to understanding the risks of Net Zero, articulating the risks of exclusion, and who is likely to be affected by them. We conclude by outlining a framework for an inclusive transition, and commenting on the policy and research implications of our thinking.