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Creativity for sustainable development? Cover

Creativity for sustainable development?

Open Access
|Oct 2015

Abstract

Environmental degradation is one of the main challenges facing the modern world. Transition to sustainable development is often cited as a strategy to contain the situation. Arguably, nation-states cannot manage this shift alone. Therefore, individuals are urged to participate in the process of transition to sustainable development by acting sustainably in their capacity as consumers and citizens. Sustainable consumption is an essential way for consumers to contribute to sustainable development. This article examines the roles that the creative input of consumers in the zero-waste brand community on Facebook might play for consumers. The focus is placed on the two theoretical possibilities: manifestation of environmental citizenship and means of self-expression. Drawing on the ideas of individualisation of responsibility and political consumerism, the article explores the creative input of consumers in the zero-waste brand community as a potentially political form of advocacy for sustainable consumption and development. The article concludes that the creative input of consumers in the zero-waste brand community might be viewed as an impact-oriented pro-environmental behaviour, whose role is a combination of manifestation of environmental citizenship and means of self-expression. As such, it fits better with the framework of depoliticised alternative hedonism than political consumerism.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/csci.73 | Journal eISSN: 1836-0416
Language: English
Page range: 55 - 71
Published on: Oct 30, 2015
Published by: Tallinn, Erfurt University
In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services
Publication frequency: 1 issue per year

© 2015 Kinga Polynczuk-Alenius, published by Tallinn, Erfurt University
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.