Sustainable consumption: from escape strategies towards real alternatives

Better sustainability policy is supposed to lead to better sustainability performance. Nonetheless, recent research predicts further growth of the ecological footprint and stable ecological deficit in Europe and North America despite their impressive policy efforts (Lenzen et al. 2007) [1]. Similarly, individual strategies result in somewhat reduced load for committed consumers, but this reduction cannot offset the total impact of the socio-economic configuration: consumers in higher income countries tend to pollute more. Comitted consumers "offset" a part of their environmental load by carrying out green purchases. A radical change assumes a change in lifestyle (Shove, 2004) [2]. The conference paper is the first step of the study that aims at measuring the significance of attitude elements as compared to the significance of the socio-economic system on different elements of consumption and environmental aspects This paper focuses on measuring the ecological footprint impacts of consumption in different product groups as well as in different income groups of the society.

Mobile Phones and Sustainable Consumption in China: an Empirical Study among Young Chinese Citizens

This millennium the number of mobile phones has exponentially grown in Western nations, however China is now the biggest mobile phone market. The present study contains questions about the sustainability aspects of purchasing mobile phones: both of the mobile phones purchase itself, and how mobile phones are used to gather environmental and health information for consumption. The results of the present study suggest, that mobile phones became an important source of information about environmental protection issues, but the specific applications do not play an important role as a source of information about environmental conscious consumption yet.

Environmentally conscious consumption patterns in Hungarian households

This article provides a comprehensive review of the literature on the theoretical aspects of sustainable consumption. The conditions for consumers’ social responsibility and the formation of environmentally conscious behavior patterns will also be discussed, along with possible methods for motivating behavioral changes. The authors have completed a primary research study with the purpose of surveying environmentally conscious consumption patterns in Hungary. They also examined how the provision of appropriate information and the raising of awareness might encourage sustainable consumption. According to their findings, the respondents’ knowledge on environmentally conscious behavior was rather limited, and reinforcement was needed in identifying appropriate activity alternatives. This paper provides a summary of the qualitative research phase which employed in-depth interviews, logging and focus groups. The consecutive application of these methods enabled the authors to keep track of the process and the consequences of raising awareness.

Spirituality and sustainable lifestyle

The paper aimed to provide additional insights into the wide and partly uncovered area of interactions among spirituality, happiness, life satisfaction and sustainability, supported by a survey representing the Hungarian society. As results reflect, spirituality definitely proves to matter in pro-environmental behaviour, sustainable consumption, happiness and life satisfaction.

Consumer behaviour and lifestyle patterns of Hungarian students in view of environmental awareness

The aim of this paper is to describe the consumer behaviour and everyday lifestyle patterns of Hungarian university and college students. The results are gained from an international survey, carried out by the Department of Environmental Economics and Technology at the Corvinus University of Budapest, supported by the Norwegian Financial Mechanism. As background literature, characteristics of the consumer society and the development of sustainable consumption as a concept are interpreted in the paper. The empirical analysis aims to describe the most important clusters of students, based on the factors of their consumer behaviour, environmental activism and pro-environmental everyday habits. Our results identify two extreme clusters which most significantly differ from each other: the environmental activists and the indifferent group. However, a third cluster has the most modest consumer behaviour, namely the group which considers product features, energy consumption and the behaviour of producers. They spend the least on consumer goods. The three other clusters show quite mixed lifestyle patterns.

A fiatalok fogyasztási és életmódbeli szokásai a környezeti nevelés tükrében

A tanulmány egy olyan kutatás mélyebb elemzésének eredményeit mutatja be, amelynek során a Budapesti Corvinus Egyetem Környezetgazdaságtani és Technológiai Tanszékének munkatársai kérdőíves felmérést hajtottak végre a Norvég Alap támogatásával, a „Fenntartható fogyasztás, termelés és kommunikáció” c. projekt keretében. A válaszok alapján összehasonlíthatjuk a fiatalok egyes csoportjainak környezettudatosságát és a fogyasztáshoz való viszonyát, amelynek alapján meghatározhatjuk a környezeti nevelés legfontosabb fókuszait és eszközeit. Két iskolatípus (egyetemisták és középiskolások) tanulóinak adatai alapján többdimenziós skálázás segítségével vizsgáltuk azt, hogy a diákokat leíró jellemzők közül melyek mozognak együtt, és melyek előfordulása mutat ellentétes irányba. Klaszterelemzéssel azt is feltártuk, hogy a mintába került személyek milyen hasonlóságokat és eltéréseket mutatnak, milyen, többé-kevésbé homogén csoportok képezhetők belőlük. Az eredmények alapján szakmai javaslatokat fogalmazunk meg a környezeti nevelés területére. _______ This paper presents the in-depth analysis of results from a survey of students from secondary and tertiary education. The survey was conducted by researchers from the department of environmental economics and technology of the Corvinus University of Budapest in the framework of the project titeld „sustainable consumption, production and communication” supported by the Norwegian Fund. The environmental consciousness and consumer behaviour of different groups of young people are compared, allowing identification of the main focus points and tools of environmental education. Multidimensional scaling is used to examine which characteristics of the students are related and which point in opposite directions. Similarities and differences between respondents were mapped through cluster analysis and relatively homogeneous groups were indentified. The results are used to make suggestions for the development of environmental education.

Fenntartható élelmiszer-fogyasztás? – Lehetőségek az ökológiai lábnyom csökkentésére a magyar lakosság körében (Sustainable food consumption? – Opportunities to reduce the ecological footprint of the Hungarian population)

Magyarországi fogyasztókról még nem készült olyan reprezentatív felmérés, amely az élelmiszer-fogyasztás környezetterhelését az ökológiai lábnyommal mérve számszerűsítette. A szerző kutatásában az élelmiszer- fogyasztásból származó ökológiai lábnyomot számszerűsítette és elemezte a magyar felnőtt lakosság körében. A cikkben először bemutatja a fenntartható élelmiszer-fogyasztás szakirodalomban található definícióit, majd a fenntartható és egészséges élelmiszer-fogyasztás mátrixát elemzi. Az elméleti áttekintést követően az empirikus kutatás eredményeinek ismertetése következik. ____ In her research the author quantified and analysed the ecological footprint from food consumption in the Hungarian adult population. In the article she presents the definitions of sustainable food consumption in the literature, and then analyses the matrix of sustainable and healthy food consumption. Following a theoretical overview the author presents the results of her empirical research.