Changing Consumption Patterns—Drivers and the Environmental Impact

Rasadhika Sharma, Trung Thanh Nguyen and Ulrike Grote
Additional contact information
Rasadhika Sharma: Institute for Environmental Economics and World Trade, Leibniz University Hannover, Königsworther Platz 1, 30167 Hannover, Germany

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 11, 1-19

Abstract: Economic growth coupled with population increase and globalization have engendered structural changes in consumption patterns around the world. Contingent on their composition, these changes can be demanding on natural resources and pose unsustainable challenges for the environment. The paper aims to provide a general framework to assess the link between changing consumption patterns and their environmental impact by focusing on the rising beef demand in Vietnam. It draws from secondary literature and data to find that the increased beef demand in Vietnam is mostly met domestically, but there is a major dependency on imports. Within Vietnam, the rising demand has contributed substantially to the carbon footprint and land use and raised waste disposal concerns. To understand the impact of Vietnamese beef demand at the global level, the paper looks at Australia. Carbon footprint and land use are estimated to provide a perspective on the plausible scale of environmental damage that can be ensued in the future. Changes in consumption patterns are an integral part of our world and will play a significant role in determining the sustainable future of our planet. Therefore, it is important to attain a better understanding of the theme and its possible impact on the environment.

Keywords: consumption patterns; environmental impact; resources use; sustainable consumption; Vietnam; Australia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/11/4190/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/11/4190/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:11:p:4190-:d:182699

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().