Inequality and sustainable consumption: Bridging the gaps

Seyfang, Gill ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4696-0798 and Paavola, Jouni (2008) Inequality and sustainable consumption: Bridging the gaps. Local Environment, 13 (8). pp. 669-684. ISSN 1469-6711

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Abstract

This article examines the potential for cross-fertilisation between the sustainable consumption (SC) scholarship and the environmental justice (EJ) scholarship. The article first maps the two areas of scholarship, discussing the cognitive, social marketing and social provisioning systems literatures of SC and the empirical and conceptual literature on EJ. The article then discusses the potential for cross-fertilisation between the two areas of scholarship. It indicates how SC scholarship can benefit from the social justice sensitivity of the EJ scholarship and how the latter area of scholarship can gain a whole new area of empirical research focusing on social justice aspects of consumption. The article seeks to demonstrate the social and policy significance of the cross-fertilisation by comparing the consumption and EJ implications of carbon taxation and personal carbon allowance trading as tools of carbon management. The article suggests that to be fair both strategies of carbon management require complementary (albeit different) measures that address background inequalities and capabilities to act in the setting created by the instruments.

Item Type: Article
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment (CSERGE)
Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Science, Society and Sustainability
Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Environmental Social Sciences
Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Resources, Sustainability and Governance (former - to 2018)
Depositing User: Rosie Cullington
Date Deposited: 26 Feb 2011 11:35
Last Modified: 17 Dec 2023 01:34
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/24658
DOI: 10.1080/13549830802475559

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