The Advent of Practice Theories in Research on Sustainable Consumption: Past, Current and Future Directions of the Field

Filippo Corsini,Francesco Appio,Rafael Laurenti,Franziska Meinherz,Luca Mora

doi:10.3390/su11020341

Abstract

The application of practice theories in the domain of sustainability research in consumer studies is increasingly advocated based on the premise that this allows to analyse consumption as a social phenomenon. Consequently, the applications of social practice theories to this field are expanding geometrically and to date, little retrospective work on this evolution has been made. We conduct a bibliometric analysis of applications of practice theories in the domain of sustainability research in consumer studies. Our results show a temporal succession of research trends: ‘consumer identity’ dominated the field between 2009 and 2012, ‘business and governance’ between 2012 and 2014, ‘sustainable consumption and production’ between 2013 and 2014, ‘urban living and policy’ between 2014 and 2015 and ‘household energy’ from 2015 until the present. We see a high potential of future applications of practice theories in the fields of the sharing and circular economy, as well as in research on smart cities. We provide new insights into the evolution and future trends of applications of social practice theory to domains that are relevant for research on sustainability and consumer studies.

Highlights

Several actors in society have acknowledged that we are facing a global sustainability crisis that is likely to have major negative impacts on the natural, social and economic foundations of society
Unlike methodologies inspired by social psychology, such as the theory of planned behaviour (TPB), which look at consumer behaviour as individual decisions in a set context, approaches drawing on practice theories look at how elements such as norms, values or material constraints coevolve with consumption practices
We found that sustainability research represents one of the main foci of social practice studies

Summary

Introduction

Several actors in society have acknowledged that we are facing a global sustainability crisis that is likely to have major negative impacts on the natural, social and economic foundations of society. The global demand for ecosystem services is beyond what the planet can provide, and human activities in various domains are on the verge of profoundly altering the underlying earth systems [1–4]. These sustainability challenges emphasise the urgent need to better understand consumption patterns as a means to shape the societal sustainability transition [5–7]. Consumer studies increasingly address unsustainable consumption patterns. Amongst the many approaches that find application in the study of consumption, social practice theory seems to play an increasingly important role and has inspired recently published research [8–12]. Practice theories have proven useful to study the often observed path dependence and stickiness of consumption practices [16–19]

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Conclusion