Sustainable production and consumption
Professor Mark HarveyCentre for Research in Economic
Sociology and Innovation
Current relevant research• Transition to a sustainable bioeconomy (ESRC)
– Sustainable transport: energy and engines– Beyond the petro-chemical technology platform
• ESRC Centre for Research and Engagement in Sustainable Behaviour (possibly).– Macro-, meso-, and micro- framework for behavioural
analysis• Eating• Sheltering• Washing and watering• Moving and communicating
“Peak petro-chemicals”
Global climate change
Food crises
Land use + water
Biodiversity
Socio-economicwelfare
INTERLOCKING CHALLENGES AND CRISES
Instituting economies• Market-led modes of innovation and consumption are
inadequate to the six challenges• Range of political instruments, national and international
– Mandates, fiscal incentives, legal constraints, public procurement, public provision, etc.
– Innovation through “directed evolution”• Governments, NGOs, incumbent and new entrant firms,
scientists – a complex interaction of multiple actors and interests.
• “Consumers”, social practices, groupings: interdependent systems of provision and end-use.
Sustainable consumption and production
• Distributed and interdependent innovation towards sustainability: systems of provision and consumption
• Sustainability AND growth versus sustainability as a restriction of consumption, localisation, etc.
• Collective and political choices – rather than individual moral or market choice
• “Triangular affairs” (state and market actors, consumer organisations/groupings) – at least.