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Consuming Values and ContestedCultures: A Critical Analysis ofthe UK Strategy for SustainableConsumption and ProductionGill Seyfanga University of East AngliaVersion of record first published: 18 Feb 2007.

To cite this article: Gill Seyfang (2004): Consuming Values and Contested Cultures: ACritical Analysis of the UK Strategy for Sustainable Consumption and Production, Reviewof Social Economy, 62:3, 323-338

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Consuming Values and Contested Cultures: A

Critical Analysis of the UK Strategy for

Sustainable Consumption and Production

Gill SeyfangUniversity of East Anglia

Abstract The term ‘‘sustainable consumption’’ is subject to manyinterpretations, from Agenda 21’s hopeful assertion that governments shouldencourage less materialistic lifestyles based on new definitions of ‘‘wealth’’

and ‘‘prosperity’’, to the view prevalent in international policy discourse thatgreen and ethical consumerism will be sufficient to transform markets toproduce continual and ‘‘clean’’ economic growth. These different perspectives

are examined using a conceptual framework derived from Cultural Theory,to illustrate their fundamentally competing beliefs about the nature of theenvironment and society, and the meanings attached to consumption.

Cultural Theory argues that societies should develop pluralistic policies toinclude all perspectives. Using this framework, the paper examines the UKstrategy for sustainable consumption, and identifies a number of failings in

current policy. These are that the UK strategy is strongly biased towardsindividualistic, market-based and neo-liberal policies, so it can only respondto a small part of the problem of unsustainable consumption. Policyrecommendations include measures to strengthen the input from competing

cultures, to realize the potential for more collective, egalitarian andsignificantly less materialistic consumption patterns.

Keywords: consumption, Cultural Theory, sustainable development, greenconsumerism, economic growth, institutions

INTRODUCTION

Over the last 15 years, ‘‘sustainable consumption’’ has become a core issue on

the international environmental agenda, and the definition which has become

widely adopted in international policy arenas is that originally set out by the

Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD):

REVIEW OF SOCIAL ECONOMY, VOL. LXII, NO. 3, SEPTEMBER 2004

Review of Social Economy

ISSN 0034 6764 print/ISSN 1470–1162 online# 2004 The Association for Social Economics

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DOI: 10.1080/0034676042000253936

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sustainable consumption is the use of goods and related products which respond to

basic needs and bring a better quality of life, while minimising the use of natural

resources and toxic materials as well as the emissions of waste and pollutants over

the life cycle, so as not to jeopardise the needs of future generations.

(Norwegian Ministry of Environment (1994), in OECD (2002): 9).

The U.K. strategy for sustainable consumption (DEFRA 2003) builds on this

definition, and promotes the consumption of ‘‘greener’’ products produced in

a ‘‘cleaner’’ manner. However, this apparent consensus about the meaning of

sustainable consumption masks underlying debates and ideological battles

over what might constitute sustainable consumption in practice. The UK

strategy, for example, stands in marked contrast to other, more radical

critiques of current consumption patterns that incorporate social sustain-

ability and equity, and favor a downscaling of material consumption rather

than continued economic growth. What are the scope, objective and rationale

of these two main definitions and the perspectives that they represent? This

paper applies Cultural Theory in a critical analysis of U.K. sustainable

consumption policy, to assess its potential effectiveness, and produce policy

recommendations.

COMPETING CULTURES OF CONSUMPTION

Mary Douglas’s Cultural Theory originated in her work on the anthropology

of consumption and public attitudes to risk. Cultural Theory is one of many

social theories of consumption and environmental decision-making which

seeks to understand patterns of behavior using explanatory tools outside the

conventional economic paradigm. Consumption decisions made in the

household and the supermarket about consumption cannot be viewed as

technically neutral events – they are inextricably linked with values and social

meaning, and are signifiers of cultural allegiance and social relationships.

Preferences are formed, not within individuals or as endowments, but rather

between people in a dynamic manner. Consumption is therefore a moral

activity, one that supports and strengthens particular forms of social

solidarity, and which is symbolic of collective values and interrelationships

(Douglas and Isherwood 1996/1979).

Concerning environmental risk, the model put forward by Douglas and

Wildawsky (1983) and developed further by Thompson et al. (1990) and

Thompson and Rayner (1998) consists of a two-by-two matrix, shown in

Figure. 1 and discussed below. It proposes a model of four competing

worldviews associated with models of cultural solidarity and social

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organization which are based upon particular myths of nature,1 which in turn

present differing diagnoses of environmental problems and prescriptions for

their solution. In this model, the axes represent degrees of social regulation or

equality (grid) and social contact or competition (group). These are:

individualists (who regard nature as robust and benign), egalitarians (who

see nature as fragile), hierarchists (who believe nature can be managed within

limits) and fatalists (for whom nature is unpredictable). A fifth group,

autonomous hermits, is outside the matrix and is neither influenced by, nor

seeks to influence others; this group is usually disregarded as a residual

category. Proponents of cultural theory hold that the model is both universal

Figure 1: The four worldviews in Cultural TheorySource: Thompson and Rayner 1998.

1 As Thompson and Rayner explain, ‘‘in social science, myths are not fictions or fanciful tales. . . they are

stories that embody fundamental truths underlying our assumptions about everyday or scientific reality’’

(1998: 282). Myths of nature and forms of social organization are here treated as interdependent categories,

iteratively justifying and determining each other within a cultural solidarity.

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in application and in scale – it represents the entirety of possible social

organizational states and is equally valid for households as for nation states

(Thompson et al. 1990).

These forms of social solidarity are constantly in competition with each

other, seeking to gain ground or influence with more people, institutions and

transactions, at the expense of others. According to Cultural Theory,

dominance by one way of life will prompt a reaction from an opposite cultural

form. Cultural Theory’s normative stance is towards political pluralism. Ney

and Thompson (1999) assert that a functioning democratic society will benefit

from allowing all three pro-active positions to have a voice in the policy-

making process, and minimizing fatalism. Indeed, they claim that when one or

more discourse is marginalized or silenced, the negative aspects of the

dominant worldviews are not held in check, with repercussions for all. For

example, the unrestrained free market (individualism) will lead to exploitation

and environmental degradation, and these tendencies are held in check by

government regulation (hierarchy) and environmentalists (egalitarianism)

(Seyfang 2003b).

Hierarchists: Responsible Consumption

Hierarchical cultures feature high degrees of both grid and group bonding,

with highly ordered social organization and low degrees of competition.

The social organization this worldview represents is one of stratified

collectivity, and respect for authority, status, experts and tradition. The

myth of nature which fits this type is one where the environment is

tolerant and predictable within definite limits – a certain degree of

uncertainty is present but equilibrium can be maintained using rules-based

structures and expert-led regulatory systems to incorporate environmental

principles into management techniques and accounting systems. Conse-

quently, a balanced and managed form of economic growth is desirable,

within structures and regulations established by experts (a top-down

approach). Sustainability requires experts to identify limits to resource use

and monitor ecological systems to protect the environment. Because

consumption is tightly bound with social status, needs are assumed to be

fixed and relative to one’s place in the hierarchy; consumption is tied up

with history and tradition as well as social standing. The hierarchical

diagnosis of the cause of environmental problems is population pressures:

ever-growing numbers of people with fixed per capita consumption needs

cannot be reconciled with limited resources. However, resources can be

collectively managed and efficiency increased according to carefully

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managed programmes of environmental improvement to cut the resource

throughput for given levels of consumption. Sustainable consumption for

hierarchists is therefore about consuming (and reproducing) in a

responsible manner, respecting traditions and limits, and accepting state

regulation to protect these. Contemporary analysts such as Weizsacker et

al. (1997) and members of the scientific elite such as the Royal Society

(Heap and Kent 2000) continue this theme.

Egalitarians: Reducing Consumption

The second group, Egalitarians are characterized by low-grid ties

(implying democratic, devolved decision-making and a high degree of

equality) and high group bonds (social cohesion, justice and equity are

important, with low degrees of competition) and see nature as a fragile

and precariously balanced system. For Egalitarians, the root of

unsustainable development is profligacy and over-consumption, driven by

the western capitalist mode of production which demands continual

economic growth and consumerism which does not meet real human

needs. This conflicts with a fragile Earth’s limited resources and carrying

capacities, and hence current lifestyles are held to be unsustainable. The

solution in this view is to reduce consumption in line with the fixed

resources available through a radical change in lifestyles and a shift in the

goals of economic development in industrialized countries away from

material consumption per se, and towards quality of life – reducing

consumption and adopting voluntary simplicity or downshifting (adopting

frugal and naturalistic consumption patterns based on local provisioning)

into a ‘‘conserver society’’ as a moral imperative. Since the environment is

viewed as a limited resource, there is a large emphasis on conserving and

redistributing resources to increase the wealth of developing countries

while reducing the material consumption of developed nations – in this

view, environmental degradation is intertwined with social injustice, and

so national and international inequality must be addressed in order to

solve environmental problems. Sustainable consumption, for egalitarians,

requires less consumption on a societal level. The social arrangements

required for such changes require strong collective action and include

challenging the existing capitalist economic system (since economic growth

is a prime cause of the environmental problem) and replacing it with

small-scale, decentralized participative democracies and self-reliant econo-

mies – in other words, egalitarian institutions (Ekins and Max-Neef 1993,

Schumacher 1993, Douthwaite 1996).

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Individualists: Opportunistic Consumption

The third group, Individualists, represent low-grid ties (little social regulation),

and low-group bonds – atomized individuals acting with high degrees of

competition and inequality. This position is closest to the traditional ‘‘rational

economic person’’ beloved of neo-Classical economics, and Individualists

believe competitive markets will deliver efficient solutions to resource scarcity,

and that personal responsibility in self-regulating networks is preferable to

governmental controls on the liberty of the individual. Given such faith in the

market, the myth of nature which justifies this perspective is that the

environment is benign and cornucopian, responding robustly to human

intervention, and can be freely traded-off against other forms of capital (for

example, human capital or manufactured capital provide substitutes for some

environmental services), which supports an experimental and opportunistic

approach to environmental management (Lomborg 2001). Individualists hold

that environmental degradation is a result of incorrect pricing mechanisms in

the marketplace and failure of property rights regimes to account for

environmental and social externalities. Consumption patterns, in this culture,

are opportunistic, conspicuous and cosmopolitan: ‘‘skilfully managing needs

and resources upwards’’ through economic development (Dake and Thomson

1993: 424). Governments are expected to correct prices and provide regulatory

frameworks to influence producers to be more eco-efficient – so sustainable

consumption in this view equates to the consumption of sustainably produced

goods (or ‘‘greener’’ economic growth), rather than any substantive shift in

consumption patterns (Holliday and Pepper 2001, OECD 2002)

Fatalists: Ad-hoc Consumption

The fourth group, Fatalists, are isolated from the rest of society (they have

low group bonds, with high inequality), but quite highly constrained in their

position by social rules – they perceive that their lives are manipulated by

external factors but feel unable to change them (they experience high grid

ties). This group views life as a lottery, with outcomes decided by chance.

They have no collective identity, feel powerless to change things, and take a

passive, rather than pro-active stance in relation to social organization and

governance, being uninvolved in politics and not planning for the future. The

myth of nature which corresponds with – and justifies such a position is one of

nature being essentially unpredictable and capricious, and so environmental

planning and management is futile – fatalists are not motivated to devise

sustainability strategies. Fatalists’ consumption patterns are therefore

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unplanned, haphazard and opportunistic in the short term – making the most

of ‘‘lucky’’ opportunities and coping through the bad times.

From the framework of Cultural Theory, we can see that sustainable

consumption and the institutions for allocating resources will be interpreted

and structured quite differently, according to the values of the various

cultures. Indeed, what is seen as desirable action within one culture may be the

very cause of environmental crisis within a competing paradigm. Dake and

Thompson (1993) empirically examined household consumption patterns and

behavior, and identified the four distinct cultural types robustly represented

among a cross section of the population. Cultural Theory is therefore good at

explaining irreconcilable differences, such as disagreements about sustainable

consumption which represent more than merely a lack of scientific knowledge.

The aim of this tool is to allow for plural rationalities, values and objectives to

be examined side by side, without recourse to untenable claims of objective

superiority, rightness, or truth.

THE UK STRATEGY FOR SUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION AND

PRODUCTION

The U.K. government defines sustainable consumption and production as:

Continuous economic and social progress that respects the limits of the Earth’s

ecosystems, and meets the needs and aspirations of everyone for a better quality of

life, now and for future generations to come.

(DEFRA 2003:10)

It further states:

given that there are limits to the Earth’s ecosystems to absorb pollution and provide

resources, the only way to maintain economic progress in the long term without

approaching these limits is to decouple economic growth from environmental

degradation . . . [and focus policy] on the most important environmental impacts

associated with the use of particular resources, rather than on the total level of all

resource use.

(DEFRA 2003: 11, 6)

This directly builds upon the government’s approach to sustainable

development, which is founded upon a belief that stable and continued

economic growth is compatible with effective environmental protection and

responsible use of natural resources – i.e. ‘‘cleaner growth’’ and improved

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resource productivity: ‘‘abandoning economic growth is not a sustainable

development option’’ (DETR 1999: para 3, 12). This is to be achieved through

a range of market-based measures which seek to account for externalities and

fill information gaps: making the polluter pay, eco-taxes, government

purchasing initiatives, consumer education campaigns and instituting

voluntary eco-labelling schemes (DETR 1999).

The report states that ‘‘government regulation has a clear and vital role to

play in ensuring that markets operate efficiently, excessive or unnecessary

regulation can obstruct efficient functioning of the market’’ (DEFRA 2003:

24). The government’s role is therefore to correct prices and provide

regulatory frameworks to influence producers to be more eco-efficient and

offer consumer choices of ‘‘green’’ and ‘‘ethical’’ products. Hence, sustainable

consumption is implicitly defined as the consumption of more ethically or

efficiently-produced goods (i.e. with no absolute reduction in consumption),

and consumer behavior is the driving force for change and ‘‘market

transformation’’ as consumers exercise their preferences for environmental

goods or social rights in the market (Pearson and Seyfang 2001, ETI 2004).

Which myth of nature underlies these policies? The environment is clearly

seen as having some limits which must be respected, and there is a strong

emphasis on seeking the advice of expert scientists to determine these limits.

These core characteristics of the U.K. government strategy identifies it as a

blend of Individualistic and Hierarchical cultures. There is an acceptance of

certain environmental limits, and a reliance on experts to identify these as the

basis for setting market frameworks, but also a policy preference for market

institutions in environmental decision-making, and a belief that technological

advances in production will provide environmental improvements without

radical changes to lifestyles. There is an outright denial of the importance of

considering overall resource use, or of questioning economic growth, which

systematically excludes Egalitarian cultures and concerns. This perspective is

typical of the discourse at national and international level, and echoes

statements made by governments (OECD 2002), and the corporate sector

(Holliday and Pepper 2001). The implications of this position will now be

critically analyzed using Cultural Theory.

ASSESSING THE UK STRATEGY

Beginning from an Individualistic Cultural position, there are a number of

market failures which prevent the market mechanism from delivering

sustainable consumption. First, current pricing structures allow for social

and environmental costs to be externalized from market prices. As a result,

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the market sends the wrong signals. The U.K. government is attempting to

address this market failure through economic instruments such as the Climate

Change Levy or the Landfill Tax, but full resource pricing is unlikely to be

comprehensively adopted, especially when it competes with conventional

economic policy goals. Second, there are information failures to overcome, to

provide consumers with information about the environmental and social

implications of consumption decisions. Government action to improve

market information includes public awareness campaigns and independent

labelling schemes such as the ETI (Holdsworth 2003). Third, only products

and brands with which individuals are familiar are subject to consumer

pressure. Producer consumption, public procurement and most investment

products are effectively invisible to end-consumers, and this ‘‘institutional

consumption’’ places the vast majority of consumption decisions outside the

hands of individual domestic consumers and is largely immune to the market

transformation potential of sustainable consumerism (Lodziak 2002).

Adopting Hierarchist and Egalitarian worldviews raises a further set of

criticisms, along with emerging possibilities for alternative strategies. First,

the neo-liberal (Individualistic) conception of sovereign consumer as rational

satisfier of wants is in decline, and psychological and sociological theory has

much to say about the drivers and meanings of consumption (Fine 2002,

Miller 1995). Multi-layered rationales for consumption are suggested by

Egalitarian and Hierarchical worldviews, and include self-expression, self-

validation, self-esteem, identity, group loyalty, status display, aspirational

consumption and political statements – any one of which might compete with

the desire to consume sustainably.

Second, even when consumers do take action and producers respond, the

voluntary nature of these responses leaves them continually vulnerable to

changes in management, public concern, and fashion. For example, in the

UK, Littlewoods clothing stores were a major participant in the Ethical

Trading Initiative, but a new management team with different priorities

withdrew from the initiative (ETI 2004). A Hierarchical culture would

advocate government regulation and standard-setting to consolidate these

improvements.

Third, in the Individualistic model of market transformation, consumer

purchases are the only votes that count. This is socially unjust, according to

competing cultures, as it privileges the competitive market at the expense of

other systems of exchange, and ignores the preferences of those unable or

unwilling to participate in the market. External barriers to participation

include the affordability, availability and convenience of obtaining sustain-

able products. Internal barriers include individuals feeling powerless to

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change the system (a Fatalistic worldview), disenchanted with corporations

and government (an Egalitarian view), and a preference for products that are

simply not available (Holdsworth 2003). Despite the commitment to

consumer sovereignty inherent in the Individualistic culture, a broader

perspective shows that consumers are not at all ‘‘free to choose’’. The

conventional market cannot offer the non-commodified goods, ‘‘authenticity’’

and local connectivity that many desire (witness the anti-globalization

movements and the growth of social enterprise and alternative channels of

consumption), and it cannot offer the lifestyles which would be preferable to

other cultural outlooks (Maniates 2002, Jackson and Michaelis 2003, Levett

et al. 2003, Porritt, 2003). For example, while consumers can choose from a

range of more-or-less energy efficient cars using several different fuels, there is

little scope to choose public transport, or to live close enough to work and

shops to be able to walk and cycle. In these ways, consumers are effectively

locked in to particular consumption patterns by the overarching social

structures of market, business, working patterns, urban planning and

development (Sanne 2002), and a strategy for sustainable consumption which

recognizes these constraints must address structural factors too – either

through top-down Hierarchical planning, or up from grassroots Egalitarian

social arrangements.

When individuals choose to consume outside the commercial and

competitive market, to access non-commodified products and services

through the social economy and informal exchange networks, the market

cannot account for and respond to their preferences – other than a reduction

in demand. Community initiatives to promote alternative models of economic

exchange, needs-satisfaction and socially-embedded development through

non-commodified consumption are plentiful – though generally marginalized

by policy frameworks (Manno 2002, Leyshon et al. 2003). Consumers choose

alternative channels of provisioning for many reasons, including a desire to

practise Egalitarian non-materialist values.

An illustrative example is that of community currencies such as Local

Exchange Trading Schemes (LETS) and time banks, where new forms of local

money are designed to serve a social, community or environmental purpose.

A LETS is a cashless economy which allows people in a locality to exchange

goods and services without using money, and there are now about 300

schemes in the U.K. involving some 20,000 people (Williams 2000). LETS has

been widely described as ‘‘green’’ money for its potential to strengthen

decentralized self-reliant local economies, encourage recycling and sharing of

resources, and enable people to access ‘‘environmentally friendly’’, low-

consumption alternatives to mainstream market offerings such as locally

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grown food, or handicrafts (Douthwaite 1996, Seyfang 2001). A second model

of community currencies is Time Banks, whose currency is based on time, and

everyone’s time is worth the same. By rewarding the unpaid labor that people

put into their communities and social reproduction, time banks encourage

reciprocity, build social capital, and challenge existing hierarchies of labour

value – all of which are Egalitarian principles. Time banks are growing in the

UK: the first project was established in 1998 and the 2002 national evaluation

found that there were a total of about 2,196 members in 36 projects and nearly

64,000 hours exchanged (Seyfang 2003a). By 2004, the number of projects

had grown to 68 (www.timebanks.co.uk). They are attracting participants

among the most socially excluded neighbourhoods in the UK, where Fatalism

might normally be expected to prevail, perhaps because they offer accessible

means to redefine social institutions of wealth and work (Seyfang 2001, 2004).

In many cases, LETS and time banks have emerged as community responses

to the negative impacts of unrestrained global capitalism – possible evidence

of a spontaneous upsurge of competing cultures to a dominant paradigm.

Fourth, the scale of the policy instrument does not fit the problem. The

environmental problems which sustainable consumption intends to address

(climate change, ozone depletion, deforestation, declining fish stocks) are

supra-national in scale. Egalitarians claim that they therefore require

negotiated, collective efforts to resolve, rather than an ‘‘invisible hand’’ of

market transactions, and Hierarchists look to scientists to provide the data to

drive that collective rules-based action. From the Egalitarian perspective, the

global institutions which currently propagate unsustainable patterns of

consumption (for example corporations, the WTO – strongly Individualistic),

are also operating at a global level, with power and influence disproportionate

to that of individual consumers. Furthermore, ‘‘when responsibility for

environmental problems is individualized, there is little room to ponder

institutions, the nature and exercise of political power, or ways of collectively

changing the distribution of power and influence in society’’ (Maniates 2002:

45). So Cultural Theory proposes that the drive for sustainable consumption

must operate through institutions consistent with Egalitarian and Hierarch-

ical perspectives, with vertical and horizontal networks of solidarity,

regulation and collective efforts for change to challenge existing regimes of

market hegemony and materialism (Manno 2002). Such action could be

channelled through government and other social institutions (such as churches

and schools) to publicly questioning the rationale of continual economic

growth, regulate corporate behavior, and encourage active citizenship.

Finally, the UK strategy refuses to question the scale of consumption (in

fact, it roundly rejects abandoning economic growth), while this is a central

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issue in the alternative Egalitarian discourses promoted by ‘‘green’’ and ‘‘new

economists’’ and ‘‘deep ecologists’’ such as Schumacher (1993) and Porritt

(2003). Indeed, the Egalitarian discourse is much more visible in continental

Europe, where the Green Party plays a larger role in national politics and

social democracy is a stronger force than in the U.K., which is leaning more

and more towards the US neo-liberal (Individualistic) social policy model. In

these views, there is a fundamental distinction to be made between economic

growth (and consumption) measured by GDP, and well-being. Measures of

the economy make no distinction between activities which enhance quality of

life), and those which do not (expenditure on pollution clean-up technology,

sales of tobacco, congested roads, for instance). More fundamentally, it is

restricted to defining ‘‘wealth’’ as that produced in the formal economy alone,

and neglects value produced by non-commodified goods and services

(Robertson 1990, Ekins and Max-Neef 1993, Douthwaite 1996).

The U.K.’s own Commission on Sustainable Development are among

those who take this Egalitarian line, and claim that linking sustainable

development to growth, as the U.K. government has done, is impossible, as

they are ‘‘tying it to the very economic framework that was responsible for

unsustainable development’’ (SDC 2001: para 32). Egalitarians propose a

range of alternative accounting systems to measure social well-being, for

example adjusting GDP by subtracting the costs of environmental degrada-

tion and income inequality, and adding in the value of unpaid labor. These

would begin to reorient economic policy towards meeting broader goals than

economic growth – after all, what gets measured, counts (Jackson 2004). This

Egalitarian perspective argues that if the fundamental purpose of the

economy is to increase well-being (yet natural resources are fixed), then it is

possible to conceive of many ways in which this can be achieved while

reducing material consumption, resource use and conventional economic

activity. This requires not simply gains in efficiency, but restructuring the

institutions of lifestyles and livelihoods in order to rationalize (and reduce)

consumption (Levett et al. 2003, Reeves 2003).

POLICY IMPLICATIONS

By viewing the U.K. government’s strategy for sustainable consumption and

production through the lens of Cultural Theory, we have seen just how

dominated government policy (and indeed international discourse) is by the

Individualistic culture and market-led approach to sustainable consumption.

This consensus of views gives the illusion that there is nothing left to debate,

and that such perspectives are uncontroversial, but this is not the case.

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Cultural Theory illustrates plural rationalities and values competing for

influence. There is, however, a dearth of empirical evidence to substantiate

Cultural Theory, and so an immediate and pressing need is for research to

identify the proportions of consumers who identify with each culture. This

will enable policymakers to design strategies to appeal to particular groups of

consumers with targeted policies, rather than assuming an homogenous

whole.

What does all this mean for policy? Cultural Theory’s normative

prescription is for a pluralistic democracy, which gives voice to the three

pro-active cultures (claiming that they balance each other for the greater

overall good) and seeks to minimize fatalism. Policy implications are

threefold. First, existing market-based tools and instruments need to be

improved to overcome the pricing and information market failures which

currently send the wrong signals to consumers. However, attending to these

limitations is only part of the solution, which must be complemented and

supported by a second strand of strategies informed by Hierarchical and

Egalitarian cultures, to produce optimal social outcomes.

Specific recommendations are to introduce government regulation to build

on and protect the improvements brought about through voluntary,

corporate self-regulatory initiatives (a Hierarchical approach). At present

there are welcome signs of consumer-driven market change, but these are

constantly threatened by changing consumer interests and fashions.

Corporate voluntary measures could be instituted in regulation as new

‘‘minimum standards’’ and continuously ratcheted up, to consolidate and

strengthen government boundary-setting of the market. In contrast,

Egalitarian strategies for sustainable consumption tend to be decentralized

‘‘bottom-up’’ community initiatives such as the community currencies

discussed earlier, which eschew Hierarchical controls, but nevertheless require

support to develop. Smith (2002) argues that social and economic niches for

alternative technologies and consumption patterns such as these can be

carved out, and provide valuable pioneering examples which the mainstream

may learn from and potentially adopt in the future. Yet, they are hampered by

higher levels of decision-making, in terms of funding and practical support.

They need ‘‘policy space’’ in which to operate – regulatory frameworks need

to allow these non-conventional initiatives to thrive and achieve their aims. A

further Egalitarian-based policy change is to introduce alternative national

accounting mechanisms which measure national well-being rather than

material consumption.

The third policy strand required to achieve an effective pluralistic strategy

for sustainable consumption is to reduce Fatalism, and so increase the

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number of people willing and able to take a pro-active stance towards

sustainable development. The traditional measure of a Hierarchical model of

political engagement – voting turnout in a representative democracy – has

shown a sharp decline in recent years, with increasing numbers of people

feeling detached from public life (Electoral Commission 2004). Local

participative or direct democracy – Egalitarian institutions – address this

democratic gap, and have become increasingly important as a structure for

engaging citizens fully with decision-making. There is enormous scope for

innovation in local government to introduce a range of empowering

deliberative tools which aim to combat Fatalism by bringing people together

to discuss pertinent issues, and enabling decisions to be taken as far as

possible by the communities affected by them, and rewarding their

engagement (Seyfang 2003a, Walker 2003).

Applying a Cultural Theory lens to an analysis of the U.K. sustainable

consumption strategy has shown that there is no consensus on what

sustainable consumption means, and no justification for concentrating policy

upon only one interpretation, as this alienates the holders of alternative

cultural values and results in sub-optimal social outcomes. Furthermore,

Cultural Theory favors a broadening of the strategy to include Hierarchical

and Egalitarian institutions, and active state intervention to promote

alternative structures for provisioning. Taking this view, governments would

achieve more significant shifts towards sustainable consumption by support-

ing and making space for enthusiastic grassroots community groups, rather

than through a top-down coercive approach, or by leaving it to the market.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research was carried out as part of the Programme on Environmental

Decision-Making, at the Centre for Social and Economic Research on the

Global Environment, University of East Anglia, for which the author grate-

fully acknowledges ESRC core funding. Thanks also to the editor, the anon-

ymous referee and Andy Jordan for comments which resulted in a far

improved paper; remaining inadequacies are the author’s sole responsibility.

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