The Role of Young Consumers in Moving to a Sustainable Consumption Future

This chapter presents the results of three different research studies that address the changes necessary to move towards a more sustainable consumption future. Each study focusses on young consumers as those most receptive to the need for change and the ones mostly likely to enact them. The first study presents results from a pilot project designed to increase young consumers’ sustainable consumption literacy. Results suggest that providing young learners with the frameworks and language for understanding sustainable consumption issues can be successful in guiding future behaviour. The second study looks at young people’s exposure to advertising and the relationship between the pervasive promotion of pro-consumption messages, the formation of materialistic attitudes and unsustainable consumption patterns. The study concludes by suggesting that the normalisation of consumption communicated through advertising should be subject to greater scrutiny and closer regulatory control. The final study asked young people to describe their visions of a sustainable consumption future to provide a blueprint from which to work backwards for its achievement. The project identified a number of practical elements such as shared provisioning systems and alternative forms of production and an emphasis on more holistic, integrated and communal approaches to living. Overall, each study provides support and encouragement for further work in these areas and the belief that young people will play an increasingly active role in leading and advocating for sustainable consumption change.