Consumption

The main focus in research on consumption in ecological economics is the (un)sustainability of consumption. This focus has resulted from the recognition that overconsumption of resources in the Global North and among the economic elites in the Global South is a major contributor to the depletion and destruction of the Earth’s ecosystems, while others still consume too little. Since the 1970s and especially the early 1990s, scholars have explored questions of how to improve the sustainability of consumption. The resulting complexity and diversity of consumption research makes it almost impossible to provide an overview of the field. In the following, we therefore try to sketch the field via a discussion of three (interacting) aspects: a) the evolution of its structures, b) empirical developments, and c) core research themes.