The place of consumption in ecological economics

Research concerning consumption in an environmental perspective has become very dynamic in recent years. Throughout the 1990s contributions have emerged from several different disciplines and approaches, and the research now covers a wide variety of topics. As ecological economics is open for considering all aspects of the interactions between humans, and the environment and simultaneously has the ambition of promoting transdisciplinary work, it is not surprising to see an increasing number of contributions on consumption and environment emerge at ecological economics conferences and in journals related to the field. This anthology can be seen as part of this wave of interest. As a background for presenting the contributions of this volume, this introduction outlines the history behind the present wave of interest in consumption and environment. Without aiming at completeness, the intention of the following is to give an idea of the disciplinary and methodological breadth and variety of research concerning consumption and environment, and to place ecological economic contributions in perspective.