Vocabulary for Sustainable Consumption and Lifestyles

“Our society has taught us since birth to consume, and the results include the alienated and overheating world we now experience. So learning a new vocabulary for consumption is a fine first step towards changing that – as this book makes clear, it’s a way of learning to actually feel the water through which we otherwise unconsciously swim.”

Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature

“As humans transgress planetary boundaries at ever-increasing speed, this book could not be more timely. We need to consume within ecological limits. This pathbreaking book – the result of an unprecedented, cross-national and cross-disciplinary collaboration – can help. Ideal for teaching, research, and for anyone who wants to consume sustainably.”

Juliet Schor, author of The Overspent American and Four Days a Week

“Given that one of the roots of today’s global ecological crises is the profligacy of the Global North, and its cornering of the planet’s ecological space, this book is a welcome addition to literature on concepts and practices that the world’s rich need to listen to and adopt, complementing other books whose focus is on learning from the Global South.”

Ashish Kothari, Global Tapestry of Alternatives, and co-editor of Pluriverse: A Post-Development Dictionary

“Much of the time, our attention goes to the environmental impacts we face as a society. This is logical, since this is what we experience. But to avoid these impacts, more attention should be given to the drivers and pressures leading to them – and here the contributions of the authors of this collection are vital and important.”

Janez Potočnik, Co-Chair, UNEP International Resource Panel (IRP)

“A Language for Our Common Future is a treasure trove of timely briefings about concepts that have potential to guide humanity towards a more humane, more sustainable future. It offers much-needed clarity and consistency, and thus the potential to underpin more fruitful conversations and more impactful action.”

Katherine Trebeck, writer-at-large, Edinburgh Futures Institute

“This book offers a powerful and timely reimagining of how we think about consumption and lifestyles in a world facing ecological and social crises. With clarity and depth, it weaves together transformative concepts and perspectives, providing an essential guide that will inspire and empower changemakers across disciplines and sectors.”

Giorgos Kallis, author of The Case for Degrowth

Lewis Akenji is Executive Director of the Hot or Cool Institute in Berlin, a public-interest think tank that explores the intersection between society and sustainability. Lewis has served as Executive Director of SEED, founded as a United Nations partnership to promote entrepreneurship for sustainable development. He has consulted with multilateral institutions including the UN, the Asian and African Development Banks, the European Commission, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and has served as technical or policy adviser to several national governments. He serves on several boards and international committees, including as a Full Member of the Club of Rome, Commissioner on the Transformational Economics Commission of Earth4All.

Philip J. Vergragt is a climate activist, Professor Emeritus of Technology Assessment at TU Delft, Netherlands; and a Research Professor at Clark University, USA. He is one of the co-founders and a current Board member of SCORAI. He co-chairs the Electric Vehicles Task Force and is an advisory member of the Energy Commission at Newton, MA. His current research interests are sustainable consumption, sustainable cities, and systemic change. He is the (co)author of more than 100 scientific publications and five books.

Halina Szejnwald Brown is Professor Emerita of Environmental Science and Policy at Clark University. Her recent academic research has focused on the interface between culture, technology and policy in facilitating a transition beyond the current consumer society. She is a co-founder and board member of Sustainable Consumption Research and Action Initiative and chairs Citizens Commission on Energy in her home city of Newton, Massachusetts. She is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, fellow of International Society for Risk Analysis, and fellow of Tellus Institute in Boston. Brown holds a doctoral degree in chemistry from New York University.

Thomas S.J. Smith is a researcher, writer, and editor based in the north of Spain. He received his PhD in Geography and Sustainable Development at the University of St Andrews, and has since held numerous roles including postdoctoral researcher in Environmental Studies at Masaryk University, Brno, and Marie Skłodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellow in Geography at Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU), Munich. He is a member of the Community Economies Institute (CEI) and on the board of the Sustainable Consumption Research and Action Initiative (SCORAI). His research interests relate to social ecological transformations, economic localization, and degrowth.

Laura Maria Wallnoefer is a Postdoctoral Research and Teaching Associate at the Institute of Marketing and Innovation, Department of Economics and Social Sciences at BOKU University. She has an interdisciplinary background in Energy and Transport Management and Sustainable Development and did her PhD on the Integration of Perspectives and Concepts about Individual’s as Change Agents at the Doctoral School for Transitions to Sustainability at the BOKU University. Her current research focuses on the intersections of different transition actors’ influence spheres, and how the multi-actor process required for a sustainable transformation can be better coordinated if those intersections are known.