Tim Jackson

Live better by consuming less? Is there a "double dividend" in sustainable consumption?

Summary Industrial ecology has mainly been concerned with improving the efficiency of production systems. But addressing consumption is also vital in reducing the impact of society on its environment. The concept of sustainable consumption is a response to this. But the debates about sustainable consumption can only really be understood in the context of much wider and deeper debates about consumption and about consumer behavior itself. This article explores some of these wider debates. In particular, it draws attention to a fundamental disagreement that runs through the literature on consumption and haunts the debate on sustainable consumption: the question of whether, or to what extent, consumption can be taken as “good for us.” Some approaches assume that increasing consumption is more or less synonymous with improved well-being: the more we consume the better off we are. Others argue, just as vehemently, that the scale of consumption in modern society is both environmentally and psychologically damaging, and that we could reduce consumption significantly without threatening the quality of our lives. This second viewpoint suggests that a kind of “double dividend” is inherent in sustainable consumption: the ability to live better by consuming less and reduce our impact on the environment in the process. In the final analysis, this article argues, such “win-win” solutions may exist but will require a concerted societal effort to realize.

Consumption, sustainable welfare and human needs—with reference to UK expenditure patterns between 1954 and 1994

Abstract This paper explores the complex relationship between economic consumption and human welfare (or well-being). Conventional economics suggests that increasing levels of economic consumption lead to increasing levels of well-being. However, this view has been criticised on both environmental and social grounds. On the one hand, the material impacts of increasing consumption are environmentally unsustainable. On the other hand, material consumption can conflict with crucial social and psychological components of human welfare. This paper develops a perspective on human welfare which is based on Max-Neefs characterisation of human needs. It discusses the implications of this alternative perspective for the conventional viewpoint and illustrates the importance of it with reference to patterns of consumer expenditure in the UK over the last 40 years. The authors suggest that—from this perspective—modern societies may be seriously adrift in their pursuit of human well-being. However, they also point out that addressing this situation provides far more opportunity for ecologically-sustainable development than is generally recognised.

Sustainable procurement in practice: Lessons from local government

Abstract By committing to green procurement, the UK government has taken a key initial step towards sustainable development. But can this be put into practice? This policy analysis explores the background to green procurement in English local government through desk research and data collection, including interviews with five local authorities. It finds that green procurement has been encouraged through legislation, providing information and dismantling barriers, but momentum was lost following the Gershon review. Implementation of the new action plan would ensure green procurement becomes embedded within government procurement. New information to link up green procurement with organisational goals would also expand the horizons of green procurement.

Photovoltaics in Zimbabwe: lessons from the GEF Solar project

Abstract This paper explores the complexities associated with the diffusion of small-scale photovoltaic systems in rural areas of developing countries. It describes in particular the experience of the GEF Solar project in Zimbabwe and the impact that this project has had on the domestic solar industry. The authors draw a number of valuable lessons from these experiences. Donor-driven energy projects bring about direct benefits to the users and can help to stimulate technology transfer and capacity building initiatives. However, such projects also have a tendency to distort market prices, hence directly undermining the already feeble renewable energy industry, and quite often they are predisposed to focus on activities occurring only during the projects lifetime. The authors argue that the Zimbabwean experience illustrates that a sustainable energy development programme requires a multi-pronged intervention that is well co-ordinated with a clear view of specific engagements beyond the donor commitment period.

Material and energy flow through the UK iron and steel sector. Part 1: 1954-1994

Abstract This paper reports on a historical materials and energy flow analysis of the UK steel sector. The flow of raw materials, steel, steel products and steel scrap are quantified for the period from 1954 to 1994. On the basis of this analysis, the authors calculate the consumption of exergy (or available energy) associated with the UK steel sector taking into account steel production, transport, generation of waste steel, trade and recycling. The study finds that overall exergy consumption in the sector has declined almost twofold from 700 to 380 PJ p.a. over the study period, indicating a similar reduction in resource consumption. This is mainly due to improvements in the exergetic efficiency of steel production and the phasing out of the less-efficient open hearth method. Contrary to the overall decline, the amount of waste steel and the transportation exergy consumption due to the import of raw materials has increased significantly. There appears to be considerable potential, therefore, to reduce resource consumption in the steel sector still further by increasing the recovery of post-use scrap.

Building a Sustainable and Desirable Economy-in-Society-in-Nature

In this chapter we describe what an “ecological economy” could look like and how we could get there. We believe that this future can provide full employment and a high quality of life for everyone into the indefinite future while staying within the safe environmental operating space for humanity on earth. Developed countries have a special responsibility for achieving those goals. To get there, we need to stabilize population; more equitably share resources, income, and work; invest in the natural and social capital commons; reform the financial system to better reflect real assets and liabilities; create better measures of progress; reform tax systems to tax “bads” rather than goods; promote technological innovations that support well-being rather than growth; establish “strong democracy,” and create a culture of well-being rather than consumption. In other words, a complete makeover. Several lines of evidence show that these policies are mutually supportive and the resulting system is feasible. The substantial challenge is making the transition to this better world in a peaceful and positive way. There is no way to predict the exact path this transition might take, but we hope that painting this picture of a possible end-point and some milestones along the way will help make this choice and this journey a more viable option.

Exergy analysis of the life cycle of steel

Exergy analysis has been applied to the life cycle of steel. Our model yields the estimate that the U.K. steel sector consumed 22GJ of exergy per tonne of steel delivered to product manufacture in 1994. The analysis shows that process improvement and increased recycling within the life cycle will reduce exergy consumption.

A Dynamic Life-Cycle Energy Model of Mobile Phone Take-back and Recycling

Summary This paper reports the results of a life-cycle energy model of a pilot mobile phone “take-back” scheme carried out by the Cellular Phones Take-back Working Group of the European Trade Organisation for the Telecommunication and Professional Electronics Industry (ECTEL) in the United Kingdom (UK) and Sweden during 1997. Using data collected from the scheme, the model calculates a snapshot “energy balance” associated with mobile phone take-back for a variety of phone types and take-back scenarios in the year 1997. It also develops a time-series model for the UK, describing the environmental implications of different take-back scenarios in the future. Because of its emphasis on interactive, dynamic modeling techniques, the methodology developed for the life-cycle model has the potential for wide application in regulatory and industrial decision making.

Negotiating Sustainable Consumption: A review of the consumption debate and its policy implications

Concern over the environmental and social implications of modern consumption patterns has emerged as a defining feature of debates about sustainable development. During the last decade, these concerns have crystallised around the concept of ‘sustainable consumption’. This paper briefly reviews the recent history of this debate. It highlights, in particular, the failure of policy-makers to agree on precise definitions of sustainable consumption and the contentious nature of exhortations to ‘consume less’. In spite of these difficulties, the author suggests that progress towards understanding and changing unsustainable patterns of consumption is not only necessary but possible. Such progress relies, however, on two key understandings: Firstly, an informed view of the wider and deeper debates about consumption and consumer behaviour within which the sustainable consumption debate sits; and secondly, a culturally open approach to the role of policy in negotiating change. The paper highlights, in particular, the potential for community-based initiatives for social change. Far from offering an intractable policy domain, the author argues that a sophisticated understanding of the social and institutional context of consumer action opens out a much more creative vista for policy innovation than has hitherto been recognised.

The viability of solar photovoltaics

Abstract This paper summarises the contributions to a special issue of Energy Policy aiming to assess the viability of solar photovoltaics (PVs) as a mainstream electricity supply technology for the 21st Century. It highlights the complex nature of such an assessment in which technical, economic, environmental, social, institutional and policy questions all play a part. The authors summarise briefly the individual contributions to the special issue and draw out a number of common themes which emerge from them, for example: the vast physical potential of PVs, the environmental and resource advantages of some PV technologies, and the fluidity of the market. Most of the authors accept that the current high costs will fall substantially in the coming decade as a result of improved technologies, increased integration into building structures and economies of scale in production. In spite of such reassurances, energy policy-makers still respond to the dilemma of PVs with some hesitancy and prefer to leave its evolution mainly in the hands of the market. This paper highlights two clear dangers inherent in this approach: firstly, that short-term cost convergence may not serve long-term sustainability goals; and secondly, that laggards in the race to develop new energy systems may find themselves faced with long-term penalties.