Collaborative consumption and the remaking of local resilience: reflecting upon enabling solutions
Date
2012
Authors
Edmonds, A.
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Lehmann, S.
Crocker, R.
Crocker, R.
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Book chapter
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Source details - Title: Designing for zero waste: consumption, technologies and the built environment, 2012 / Lehmann, S., Crocker, R. (ed./s), Ch.5, pp.89-111
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Abstract
Current patterns of consumption are, quite clearly, unjust and unsustainable; the extent and nature of the transformation required are hotly debated, reflecting as they do competing, deep-rooted beliefs about society and nature (Seyfang, 2009). One of the greatest difficulties in effecting change is that, rather than creatively expressing their identity, consumers’ choices are limited, and they are ‘effectively trapped within partic - ular consumption patterns and lifestyle practices by the overarching social structures of market, business, working patterns, urban planning and development’ (Ropke, 1999, in Seyfang, 2009, p17; Sanne, 2002). As sustainability theorist Gill Seyfang notes, this has implications for locating agency and allocating responsibility: ‘in the social practices approach, the responsibility of the individual towards environmental change is analysed in direct relation with social structure’ (Spaargaren, 2003, p690, in Seyfang, 2009, p18). In expanding on this, Seyfang (2009, p18) presents an illustrative example: A person might choose one brand of washing machine over another because of its greater energy efficiency, but what they cannot easily choose is to purchase collectively and share common laundry facilities among a group of local residents, or to redefine social conventions to reduce the socially acceptable frequency of clothes washing.
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Copyright 2012 Angelique Edmonds