Sustainable consumption in history: water, energy, waste and mobility

Heather Chappells, Frank Trentmann, Heather Chappells, Frank Trentmann, Heather Chappells and Frank Trentmann

Chapter Chapter 2 in The Elgar Companion to Consumer Behaviour and the Sustainable Development Goals, 2025, pp 18-38 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This chapter places sustainability as an idea and practice in a historical context. It follows the career of the concept from the eighteenth century to the current dominant paradigm of sustainable consumption and production and reflects on how this idea is articulated in the Sustainable Development Goals. The increasingly integrated and global vision is examined alongside the local challenges to achieving sustainability in four domains: water, mobility, energy and waste. Current approaches to conservation during energy crises and droughts are located in a longer history of tension between conservation and efficiency, on the one hand, and rising consumption and material flows, on the other. The chapter assesses the success and failure of regions and cities to promote more sustainable mobility and energy and water use. Widening the perspective from individual behaviour to social practices and their historical dynamics can illuminate the changing resilience of human societies in the face of disruption and transition to new resources.

Keywords: Sustainable consumption and production; Sustainable Development Goals; History of consumption; Sustainable cities and regions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035325054
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