About this Research Topic

Background

The mitigation of the major crises of our time – such as climate change, biodiversity loss and resource depletion, as well as production of waste and pollution – requires profound changes in society. These changes are rooted and manifested in the everyday lives of ordinary consumers and citizens.
One of the pressing tasks is to imagine and realise versions of everyday life that fit within the envelope of sustainability. Whether driven by technological development, social (‘grassroot level’) reorganisation, political steering or other intervention, changes in everyday are often complex, filled with tension and difficult to grasp. The recent and anticipated crises (such as the covid pandemic, Russian war in Ukraine, and extreme weather events) leading to, for example, economic pressures, resource scarcity, and social insecurities add to this complexity, and test the flexibility and resilience of the everyday lives of people across the world. Organising everyday life in the middle of these changes, and in the way that respects the planetary boundaries, also calls for novel forms of collaboration and inclusiveness, innovativeness, and new roles for the citizens.
Adjusting to challenges and crises cause tensions in everyday life. For the study of sustainable consumption, examination of these offer valuable lessons to promote future sustainability transformations. The development of approaches that can grasp and address emerging complexities in everyday life is needed. Examples of such approaches could include examining consumption within historical trajectories, social institutions, infrastructures, actor roles and practices on which various forms of everyday life depend.
This Research Topic invites contributions that address either realized, failed, or imagined versions of sustainable everyday life and related tensions. Both past, present, and future looking, conceptual or empirical investigations are welcome, as well as contributions from various domains of everyday life such as energy, food, housing, mobility, and services. We welcome also contributions examining policies and governance as current crises may require new ways of guiding unsustainable consumption that could impact everyday lives even drastically.
With this Research Topic, we aim to reach a broad account of what (strong) sustainability is in everyday life, how consumption is steered and shaped, what kinds of skills and competencies are needed and what kinds of tensions and solutions arise. We hope to gather new insights on how significant challenges such as radical demand reduction might be approached.

Keywords: consumer products, sustainable decision-making, sustainable behaviours

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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