Journal article
Greening the Danes? Experience with consumption and environment policies
Innovation and Sustainability, Department of Management Engineering, Technical University of Denmark1
Department of Management Engineering, Technical University of Denmark2
Department of Technology and Social Sciences, Technical University of Denmark3
Planning and Management of the Built Environment, Department of Management Engineering, Technical University of Denmark4
Consumer-oriented environmental policies came high on the political agenda during the 1990s. Internationally, consumers were assigned a key role in environmental policies; also in Denmark, political initiatives were taken to promote sustainable consumer behaviour. In this article, the results of Danish policies related to consumption and environment are assessed by considering first, the environmental impacts of the political measures, and second, whether the policies have succeeded in addressing the dynamics behind increasing consumption.
The study combines a theoretical understanding of consumption as an inseparable part of daily practices with empirical analyses of three fields of consumption: Housing, transportation, and information and communication technology. It is pointed out that policies to promote sustainable consumption are successful only when technological development, economic structures, and information are all in accordance with each other, and this is only the case when sustainable consumption does not conflict with economic growth.
A more fundamental critique thus concerns the failure of Danish consumer-oriented environmental policies to address consumption growth and the rising standards for “normal consumption”.
Language: | English |
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Publisher: | Kluwer Academic Publishers-Plenum Publishers |
Year: | 2007 |
Pages: | 91-116 |
Journal subtitle: | Consumer Issues in Law, Economics and Behavioural Sciences |
ISSN: | 15730700 and 01687034 |
Types: | Journal article |
DOI: | 10.1007/s10603-007-9029-2 |