The Challenge of Making Consumption Sustainable

UTACAS-lecture

Prof. Alan Warde (University of Manchester): “The Challenge of Making Consumption Sustainable”

Time: Tuesday, 26 October 2010 at 16.15
Venue: Pinni B building, lecture hall Pinni B 1096, Kanslerinrinne 1.

Free admission. Welcome!

Organised by the University of Tampere Centre for Advanced Study - UTACAS

Resumé

Retarding, mitigating or adapting to climate change will require radical alteration to consumption patterns. A substantial proportion of CO2 emissions are from domestic households, with travel, heating and cooling, and eating the practices with the heaviest footprints. As the economies of India, China, Brazil and Russia expand to incorporate the imperatives of global consumer culture, the aspirations of their populations might be expected to converge with those of the contemporary West. We might anticipate that technological innovation will provide some relief, but it is doubtful whether a technical fix will be sufficient. Recognising this, governments have recently begun to address the issue of changing the behaviour of their citizens. They do so largely on the presupposition that the most effective (or only politically feasible) strategy is to persuade or incentivise individuals to abandon bad habits, habits for which they have personal responsibility and which they have the power or capacity to alter. This dominant view operates with a notion of human conduct founded on individual sovereignty, assuming that personal freedom for individuals to choose that which they prefer among alternative courses of action is an accurate and proper way to understand and support decisions about consumption (ie, individuals should be treated as ‘consumers’).

This talk identifies the main types of strategy usually canvassed for behaviour change and looks at reasons why strategies for correcting the bad habits of individuals’ are limited in their efficacy. It emphasizes the interdependence of individuals, examining how ‘meso-level’ social institutions shape and steer behaviour. It points to the underestimated influence of social contexts, social networks, shared conventions, infrastructural forces and power in determining how individuals act. The argument is illustrated by the practice of eating, with reference to the obesity epidemic and the fate of vegetarianism. Also, using some evidence from a study of cultural consumption about the planning of household meals and decisions to eat out, it is suggested that models of individual consumer choice are limited, especially in their understanding of everyday routine activity. This implies a need to reconsider both explanations of consumption in contemporary societies and the most effective forms of intervention for achieving sustainability.

Alan Warde is Professor of Sociology at the University of Manchester and Co-Director of the ESRC Centre for Research on Innovation and Competition (CRIC). From autumn 2010 Alan Warde is the Jane and Aatos Erkko Visiting Professor in Studies on Contemporary Society at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, University of Helsinki, Finland. He joined the University of Manchester in September 1999, his previous position being Professor of Sociology at Lancaster University. In the past he has conducted research in the areas of politics, social movements, cities, domestic divisions of labour, economic restructuring and the social structure of Britain. His current research is wide ranging, and covers the sociology of consumption, with particular emphasis on food, social stratification and economic sociology. More information on Alan Warde: www.helsinki.fi/collegium/english/staff/Warde/warde.htm

More information
Risto Heiskala
risto.heiskala@uta.fi