Abstract
Consumption is a transcending challenge for the 21st century that is stimulating research on multiple pathways required to deliver a more environmentally sustainable future. This paper is nested in what is a much larger field of research on sustainable consumption and reports on part of a major Australian Research Council study into the determinants of household resource consumption, based on a survey of 1,250 residents in Melbourne, Australia. Three environmental lifestyle segments are established that represent the spectrum of attitudes, opinions and intentions across the surveyed population: “committed” greens, “material” greens and “enviro-sceptics” (representing respectively 33.5%, 40.3% and 26.3% of the population). Each segment was found to display distinctive socio-demographic attributes, as well as urban geographies. However, few differences were found in relation to each segment’s actual consumption of energy, water, housing space, urban travel and domestic appliances. The research findings indicate that in these areas of urban resource consumption—all principal contributors to the ecological footprint of households—there are sets of factors at work that override attitudes, opinions and intentions as indicators of consumer behaviour. Some of these factors are information, organization and finance related and are the focus of much public policy. However, the persistence of well ingrained habits and practices among individuals and households and the lack of norms and values in western societies that explicitly promote environmental conservation among its population, are fundamentally involved in the attitude-action gap and constitute important avenues for future research and action.
Highlights
Trajectories of consumption across a wide spectrum of urban services and resources in high income societies continue to trend upwards [1,2]
The proposition from some behaviour change theorists is that high levels of ―concern for environment‖—as we have identified here—will be translated into a predisposition towards more sustainable forms of consumption
Changing behaviour, which involves winding back currently unsustainable levels of resource consumption, has the prospect of making an impact much more rapidly than most, if not all, supply-side responses, both clearly need to be operating in tandem if the 21st century is to deliver a sustainable platform of urban living
Summary
Trajectories of consumption across a wide spectrum of urban services and resources in high income societies continue to trend upwards [1,2]. Many prospective sustainability ―wedges‖ are found in the literature and include: Dematerialisation: a reduction in the resource inputs required to produce consumer products, such as building materials, domestic appliances and automobiles via recycling, re-use and closed loop manufacturing; Substitution of renewable for non-renewable resources, e.g., use of solar energy rather than fossil fuels, of public transport or active transport rather than private car, of low energy lighting for higher energy products; Efficiency in use of materials, spaces, time, etc., capable of being achieved via the (re-)design of a product or system, so as to be reflected in its operating performance, e.g., energy-efficient housing design; and Conservation of resources capable of being seen as a lowered absolute consumption of a resource (such as energy, water, petroleum, land, housing space and kilometres travelled) achieved by any of the pathways listed above, as well as by a change in habits and behaviours by those involved as consumers They cover the spectrum of research from sustainable production to sustainable consumption—from the supply side to the demand side. Radical change is possible in both these arenas, but the timescale required is considerable, the increasing interest being shown by governments in behaviour change policies and programs [10,11]
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