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A Note from the Newsletter Editors:
The COVID-19 pandemic and necessary social distancing measures that people around the world are taking affect each of us in very different ways. As difficult as this time is for many of us, we are very thankful for the opportunity to learn from the conversations that are ongoing about how the crisis exposes existing vulnerabilities and may open up new possibilities for transformational change. More than ever, solutions that prioritize sustainability and collective wellbeing over profit and private gains are desperately needed. A wide range of thought provoking new opinion pieces by members of our network have been added to the SCORAI website this month-- we encourage you to read the SCORAI blog here.
Read on for updates about recent publications opportunities to engage in discussions and conferences-- many of which are being adapted to be held virtually, including our 4th International SCORAI conference. We wish your families health and wellbeing.
In solidarity,
Halina and Liz
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SCORAI Virtual Conference June 10-12, 2020
Regular registration: $120 | Student and low-income registration: $50
The world has changed dramatically since we began planning this conference many months ago. In response to risks and uncertainty associated with the COVID-19 pandemic we have shifted the conference format to be held online. We are grateful to have the opportunity to transition to a fully digital conference format that will reduce our collective consumption while preserving vitally important sharing of ideas.
This conference provides an opportunity to highlight cutting-edge research and innovative initiatives from different parts of the world, to expand linkages between knowledge and action, and to broaden connections among a diversity of researchers and practitioners.The conference’s focus on sustainable consumption and social justice in an urbanizing world is more important than ever now as we face this global pandemic, which underscores the interconnections between personal behaviors and societal outcomes and demonstrates the importance of linking research to action.
Keynote speakers: Sherilyn MacGregor, Aaron Tanaka, Anna Coote, Emily Kawano, Arnold Tukker, Barbara Muraca, Peter Victor
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Sustainable Consumption in the News
What the Coronavirus Means for Climate Change
New York Times | by Meehan Crist | March 27, 2020
Lockdowns and distancing won’t save the world from warming. But amid this crisis, we have a chance to build a better future. Crist writes, "Our response to this health crisis will shape the climate crisis for decades to come. The efforts to revive economic activity — the stimulus plans, bailouts and back-to-work programs being developed now — will help determine the shape of our economies and our lives for the foreseeable future, and they will have effects on carbon emissions that reverberate across the planet for thousands of years."
COVID-19 and the Nature Trade-off Paradigm
UN Environment Program | Interview with Pushpam Kumar, United Nations Environment Programme, Chief Environmental Economist | March 31, 2020
Trade-off analysis considers both the positive and negative impacts of human interventions on nature and observes the ways a situation changes when there is more of one thing and less of another.
What the Coronavirus Pandemic can Teach us about the Climate Emergency
The Intercept | by Charles Komanoff and Christopher Ketcham | April 4, 2020
"What does solidarity have to do with climate? Everything. People whose health is tenuous and whose pocketbook is empty can’t easily stand up for climate action, but they may do so if government has put them on a solid footing and, in the Green New Deal, provided a framework for paying them good wages to actually implement it."
We're not Going Back to Normal
MIT Technology Review | by Gideon Lichfield | March 17, 2020
"All of us will have to adapt to a new way of living, working, and forging relationships. But as with all change, there will be some who lose more than most, and they will be the ones who have lost far too much already. The best we can hope for is that the depth of this crisis will finally force countries—the US, in particular—to fix the yawning social inequities that make large swaths of their populations so intensely vulnerable."
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Sustainable Consumption in the News
What the Coronavirus Means for Climate Change
New York Times | by Meehan Crist | March 27, 2020
Lockdowns and distancing won’t save the world from warming. But amid this crisis, we have a chance to build a better future. Crist writes, "Our response to this health crisis will shape the climate crisis for decades to come. The efforts to revive economic activity — the stimulus plans, bailouts and back-to-work programs being developed now — will help determine the shape of our economies and our lives for the foreseeable future, and they will have effects on carbon emissions that reverberate across the planet for thousands of years."
A Moderate Proposal: Nationalize the Fossil Fuel Industry
The New Republic | by Kate Aronoff | March 17, 2020
We’re facing a shale crash, a likely recession, and a surefire climate crisis. The White House has reportedly been exploring a bailout for a struggling fossil fuel industry. The Democracy Collaborative’s Carla Skandier proposes “ 51 Percent Solution for the Climate Crisis,” in which the government takes a majority stake in privately owned fossil fuel firms, winding down production along a science-based timeline and giving workers a dignified off-ramp into other well-paid work, all the while muting the industry’s enormous influence over our political system. For addition reading on this subject, this article from the Next System Project is recommended: A History of Nationalization in the United States: 1917-2009
COVID-19 and the Nature Trade-off Paradigm
UN Environment Program | Interview with Pushpam Kumar, United Nations Environment Programme, Chief Environmental Economist | March 31, 2020
Trade-off analysis considers both the positive and negative impacts of human interventions on nature and observes the ways a situation changes when there is more of one thing and less of another.
What the Coronavirus Pandemic can Teach us about the Climate Emergency
The Intercept | by Charles Komanoff and Christopher Ketcham | April 4, 2020
"What does solidarity have to do with climate? Everything. People whose health is tenuous and whose pocketbook is empty can’t easily stand up for climate action, but they may do so if government has put them on a solid footing and, in the Green New Deal, provided a framework for paying them good wages to actually implement it."
We're not Going Back to Normal
MIT Technology Review | by Gideon Lichfield | March 17, 2020
"All of us will have to adapt to a new way of living, working, and forging relationships. But as with all change, there will be some who lose more than most, and they will be the ones who have lost far too much already. The best we can hope for is that the depth of this crisis will finally force countries—the US, in particular—to fix the yawning social inequities that make large swaths of their populations so intensely vulnerable."
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Farewell to SCORAI Board Member Deric Gruen
 After nearly 4 years our colleague Deric Gruen has left the Board. New responsibilities at work and home made it necessary for him to move on. Derik was our “practitioner” representative in the Board. His major contribution to SCORAI was to bring to our work the perspective from the civil society, public policy and bringing his activist and policy-oriented viewpoints into our discussions. He was especially active in connecting us with the New Economy movement and with DeGrowth US. We want to thank him for his collegial support and dedication, especially in times of crisis. We wish him well in his further career and activities, and especially in his new role as a father to his newborn baby.
If you want to contact Deric on issues around state or local policy work on sustainable consumption with intersections to environmental justice or community economic development you can reach him at deric@peopleseconomy.org or deric@frontandcentered.org.
Thank you, Deric!
Manisha, Daniel, Halina, Philip
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Special Issue of Sustainability, "Prospects and Challenges of Sustainable Public Purchasing"
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 1 May 2020
Special Issue Editors: Prof. Nicole Darnall; Prof. Justin M. Stritch; Prof. Stuart Bretschneider of Arizona State University
The public sector represents the largest single buyer of goods and services worldwide (World Bank Group, 2016), accounting for more than 17 percent of global GDP. Even at the local level, public sector purchasing has enormous economic impact. For instance, in the U.S. alone, local governments purchase $1.72 trillion of goods annually (U.S. Census, 2016), which accounts for between 25 percent and 40 percent of all tax dollars collected (Coggburn, 2003). Collectively, these purchases generate environmental impacts that are nine times greater than the impacts associated with managing the public sector’s buildings and fleets (Tangherlini, 2014). However, only recently has the public sector begun to implement more broad-sweeping sustainable purchasing (or procurement) policies.
For this Special Issue, we welcome scholarly papers that advance our understanding of how governments and other public sector organizations (e.g., public schools, universities, the military) are advancing sustainable purchasing. We encourage submissions that address, but are not limited to, the following topics and questions:
- Broader Concerns Related to Sustainable Public Purchasing
- Sustainable Purchasing and Organization Mission, Culture, Leadership, and Structure
- Motivation to Adopt Sustainable Public Purchasing
- Public Sector Collaborations Around Sustainable Purchasing
- Information Access about Sustainable Purchases
- Sustainable Public Purchasing Outcomes
For author guidelines see: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability/instructions
For additional information, visit bit.ly/37sDEyQ
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Upcoming Conferences
Listed in chronological order, from coming-soon to farthest out on the horizon.
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ICTA-UAB International Conference 2020 on Low-Carbon Lifestyle Changes
May 6-8, 2020 | Virtual Conference
Given the exceptional situation that COVID-19 has brought to all of us, the conference has been reorganized to be held virtually. The date of the conference remains at May 6-8 2020, and registration will be possible until April 17 for presenters / April 30 for spectators. For more information about the content and our plans for virtual participation, please refer to our tentative program and participant guide.
This conference will explore the role of changing lifestyles in climate change mitigation. Decreasing energy demand and promoting more sustainable consumption patterns are regarded as key elements for limiting global warming to 1.5 °C. However, the study of the lifestyle changes required for such purpose has received limited academic attention to date. As is tradition at ICTA-UAB, this conference will bring together researchers from different academic disciplines to address and discuss the impacts, drivers and policies of low-carbon lifestyles.
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DeGrowth Vienna 2020
May 29 - June 1, 2020 | Vienna, Austria
Vienna will host a thematic degrowth conference, focusing on Strategies for Social-Ecological Transformation. The Vienna conference will explicitly focus on exploring strategies for a degrowth transformation, complementing the 2020 international degrowth conference in Manchester. The conference is hosted by the association Degrowth Vienna as well as several university institutes from Vienna. It will take place at the University of Vienna and Semper Depot.
The conference will have a participatory design, including a thorough documentation process to generate tangible outcomes for the degrowth movement and research community. The conference consists of two main parts, firstly understanding past and future transformations and the role of strategies and secondly, strategies in practice.
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2020 Actionable Science for Urban Sustainability (AScUS)
June 3-6, 2020 | Segovia, Spain
The AScUS (un)conference may be affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Nonetheless, thanks to its strong remote component, we are keeping the current dates for the (un)conference (June 3–5). The in-person event may or may not take place, depending on how the situation unfolds. On May 1st, we will make a final call on the in-person event, but the remote component will go on as scheduled. When registration opens (early April), we will allow for people to initially register as a remote participant and upgrade their registration in May depending on the situation.
AScUS-2020 is a participants-driven (un)conference with the mission to engage attendees to stimulate in-depth discussions. The in-person event will not feature any individual presentations; instead, all contributions from participants will have to be submitted online ahead of time. Discussion topics will also be selected by the participants ahead of the event. The (un)conference will start with a virtual component several weeks before the conference, when the participants will be expected to submit their contribution, to start generating discussions and sharing knowledge among participants. See below for details. The (un)conference will then culminate with a two and a half day event at IE University in Segovia that can be attended physically or remotely.
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Sustainable Consumption Research Pre-Conference
June 8-9, 2020 | Virtual Workshop
Early-career researchers and practitioners working on sustainable consumption are invited to attend an intense 2-day pre-conference held immediately prior to the 2020 Conference on Sustainable Consumption and Social Justice in an Urbanizing World. The pre-conference will consist of talks by leading sustainable consumption researchers, urban sustainability practitioners and workshops on grant-writing. It will offer early-career researchers the opportunity to connect with peers and senior colleagues and engage with fundamental questions of the inter- and transdisciplinary field of SCR. The two-day event aims to provide some fundamental orientation around current topical and methodological trends in SCR, provide opportunities for exchange and build a community of practice among early-career professionals in sustainable consumption who self-identify as convergence thinkers, researchers, and practitioners.
Please direct any questions to pre-conference co-conveners Dr. Daniel Fischer (Arizona State University, dfische6@asu.edu) and Dr. Manisha Anantharaman (St Mary's College, ma20@stmarys-ca.edu).
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Sustainable Consumption & Social Justice in an Urbanizing World
4th International SCORAI Conference
June 10-12, 2020 | Virtual Conference
This international conference will convene scholars and practitioners to focus on sustainable consumption as it relates to urban issues and social equity. With growing social and racial inequities and widening disparities among and within communities, patterns of consumption are shifting as are notions of “sustainable consumption”. In an increasingly urban world where climate disruptions are exacerbating vulnerabilities of all kinds, there is growing acknowledgement of a need for systemic changes to alter societal expectations of resource use and consumption patterns.
We are grateful to have the opportunity to transition to a fully digital conference format that will reduce our collective consumption while preserving vitally important sharing of ideas. Full details can be found at the conference website: https://cssh.northeastern.edu/scorai2020/
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Promoting Health and Wellbeing: Creating a More Equitable and Sustainable Environment
24th Annual Health Promotion Conference
June 18, 2020 | National University of Ireland Galway, Ireland
The conference theme is ‘Promoting Health and Wellbeing: Creating a more equitable and sustainable environment’. This one-day conference aims to promote exchange of ideas on research, policy and practice, as well as to act as a networking platform to promote future development of collaborative partnerships in the field of health, wellbeing and sustainability.bThe conference is organized and hosted in collaboration with the Irish Department of Health, the Health Service Executive, and the Association of Health Promotion Ireland.
The conference aims to bring together leading academics, researchers, practitioners and policymakers to present theoretically informed, empirical research and perspectives on this theme. The conference will address research and keys developments across health equities, wellbeing and sustainability, as well as climate adaptation, livable healthy space and place, and equitable governance structures.
The deadline for abstract submissions has been extended to Monday, April 6. See conference details here: https://nuigalwayhprc.clr.events/event/129239:promoting-health-and-wellbeing-creating-a-more-equitable-and-sustainable-environment
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International Workshop on the Sharing Economy (IWSE)
1-3 July, 2020 | Barcelona, Spain
The workshop is organised by the Faculty of Economics and Business of the Open University of Catalonia, UOC. Organizers look forward to receiving abstract submissions by 15th March 2020. The sharing economy is arguably coming of age. As well as becoming an increasingly consolidated phenomenon in itself, research on the topic also represents an increasingly consolidated knowledge base. This ever-dynamic field, however, is still faced with a number of conceptual, methodological and empirical challenges that are increasingly complex and are perpetually shifting. Instructions for abstract submissions are available at http://symposium.uoc.edu/40402/detail/7th-international-workshop-on-sharing -economy-barcelona-2020.html
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International Sustainable Development Research Society (ISDRS) 26th Annual Conference: Sustainability in Transforming Societies
15-17 July, 2020 | Budapest, Hungary
The Budapest conference will aim at identifying the most important trends in today's societies happening either as a result or parallel to the environmental and social crises we face in both developing and developed countries. The conference will explore the sustainability implications of these large scale changes, including, but not limited to shifts in demographics and the polarization evident in many societies; the impacts of rapid technological innovation including the digitisation of the economy; the shifting centres of economic power and the spread of new business models, as well as resulting changes in lifestyles. Full conference details are available here: http://www.isdrsconference.org/page/54/home/
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11th International Sustainability Transitions Conference
“Governance in an Era of Change – Making Sustainability Transitions Happen”
August 18-21 2020 | Vienna, Austria
European Parliament has declared a climate emergency, following a number of countries and local communities worldwide. Proposals for a “Green New Deal” have been advanced on both sides of the Atlantic, seeking broad-based support. Calls for “just transitions for all”constitute an integral part of the Paris Agenda and the Green Deal proposed by the President of the European Commission. These and other recent developments create the impression that there is a growing realization of the necessity of immediate and profound systemic change, in order to tackle the manifold global crises of our times. However, business-as-usual and one-size-fits-all approaches won’t be successful in providing the most effective and suitable multi-level and place-based actions, policies and governance approaches that will substantially boost transitions in this respect. Against this background,the call for IST 2020 “Governance in an Era of Change –Making Sustainability Transitions Happen”invites researchers to put these developments into perspective. Following up on last year ́s focus on“Accelerating sustainability transitions”, we specifically invite contributions that address structural issues and causes for current challenges together with the design and implementation of transformative governance and policies for systemic change. Visit the conference website for further details: https://transitionsnetwork.org/ist-2020-august-18-21/
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8th World Sustainability Forum
September 14-19 2020 | Geneva, Switzerland
WSF2020 is an international scientific conference coordinated by the MDPI Sustainability Foundation, under the patronage of the University of Basel, the University of Geneva and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (UN SDSN).
SCORAI Europe is happy to announce an official partnership with the 8th World Sustainability Forum, taking place in Geneva from September 14 to 19, 2020. Members will be able to avail of a 20% discount on registration fees. A session stream relevant to sustainable consumption topics will be proposed, and information on paper, poster and other contributions can be found online at: https://wsf-8.sciforum.net/#custom1040. For further information on SCORAI involvement, please contact the co-organizers for SCORAI Europe, antonietta.digiulio@unibas.ch or marlyne.sahakian@unige.ch.
For the World Sustainability Week (WSW) in Geneva, we seek proposals for sessions, and for presentations of papers and posters on sustainable development that are policy-relevant, change-oriented, and inter- or trans-disciplinary. Submissions should aim to foster research, networking, and debates in science and technology, the life sciences, and the social sciences, as well as fruitful exchanges between academia and the public, civic, or private sectors.
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British Institute of Energy Economics (BIEE) 2020 Conference
Energy for a Net Zero Society
September 22-23 2020 | Blavatnik School of Govt, Oxford, UK
BIEE’s Oxford Conference is a biennial research conference that seeks to understand the drivers of change in energy, both positive and negative. The conference is aimed at energy analysts, researchers, strategy and policy thinkers from all backgrounds, including industry, academia and research organisations, government, the finance community, NGOs and consultancies. BIEE conferences are renowned for the quality of their speakers, for their open, productive discussion and debate and for the diverse range of participants. They provide a forum for sharing new thinking and ideas from across the sector. It is the mix of people and perspectives that makes this conference distinctive. The deadline for abstract submissions is March 3, 2020. For further details, including full call for papers, abstract submission and to register your interest in attending, please see the conference web page: http://www.biee.org/conference-list/energy-net-zero-society/
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 Happier with less? Members of European environmental grassroots initiatives reconcile lower carbon footprints with higher life satisfaction and income increases
Karin Dobernig and Karin Schanes
International Journal of Consumer Studies
To significantly reduce the volumes of food currently wasted in industrialized countries, tackling food waste on the household level is paramount. While awareness campaigns and economic incentives are important measures, it is crucial to look beyond individual decision making and scrutinize how contextual factors frame consumer lifestyles in ways that intensify the issue of food going to waste. This paper addresses the role of material contexts—in particular, infrastructures and technologies— in the shaping of food shopping and storing practices and thus consumer food
waste. It presents an in‐depth, qualitative study with 24 Austrian households, conducted from November 2016 to February 2017. Data were collected through food waste diaries, semi‐structured interviews and a total of 16 focus group discussions. In line with other studies, we find that food waste is a largely unintended outcome of entangled daily routines revolving around food, such as meal planning, grocery shopping and food storing. The characteristics of food retail infrastructures—in terms of accessibility, density and type—shape these routines and thus potentially influence
excess food purchases. Food storing practices as well depend on the characteristics of domestic infrastructures and co‐evolve with technologies used for storing food. Unraveling the interconnectivity between material contexts and household food practices can inform policy, product design and food retail development and thus has implications for reducing consumer food waste.
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 The Concept of “Consumption Corridors” Meets Society: How an Idea for Fundamental Changes in Consumption is Received
R. Defila & Antonietta Di Giulio
Journal of Consumer Policy
The concept of consumption corridors is a concept to guide policy design and policy-making. It suggests applying good life and justice as the primary symbolic-interpretative construct in designing and implementing sustainable consumption governance. Proceeding from there, the concept proposes achieving sustainability in consumption by developing corridors of consumption, that is, by defining minima and maxima of consumption. Translating the concept into policies would make it possible to induce fundamental changes in consumption without imposing specific lifestyles on individuals and without demonizing consumption. To investigate how this concept is received in a society, the concept has been subjected to a representative survey in Switzerland (N = 1,059) using an adapted semantic differential scale. Respondents were presented with seven deliberative spaces in which they had to position themselves in their role as citizens. Each of these deliberative spaces is formed by juxtaposing contradicting (bipolar) arguments representing a debate, and each deliberative space represents a belief that is crucial to the concept. The results show that the seven deliberative spaces reflect a common latent factor, the openness to endorse the concept of consumption corridors. The results of the respondents’ positioning suggest a slightly positive openness to endorse the concept in Switzerland. Multiple regression analysis was used to test if gender, age, income, education, altruism, and political attitude predict participants’ openness to endorse the concept. Political attitude is the strongest predictor of the respondents’ overall positioning, but the effect of the political attitude on the reception of the concept is, at least in Switzerland, less strong than assumed. Similarly, at least in Switzerland, the concept is less polarizing than expected, that is, it is controversial but not polarizing. In sum, the concept of consumption corridors offers a new frame for governance that has the potential to provide common ground beyond traditional political divides. People do not reject the frame provided by the concept in terms of its content, and they do not think that it would be impossible to put it into practice. Finally, people are able and willing to engage with the arguments in favour and against the concept.
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 Spatial consumption-based carbon footprint assessments - A review of recent developments in the field
Jukka Heinonen, Juudit Ottelin, Sanna Ala-Mantila, Thomas Wiedmann, Jack Clarke, Seppo Junnila
Journal of Cleaner Production
Consumption-based carbon footprint (CBCF) assessments have become increasingly important in studying the drivers of climate change from a consumer perspective. A wide range of studies and approaches for CBCF have been presented, yet a systematic and interpretative synopsis of the literature is missing. We present a comprehensive review of more than 100 CBCF studies published in Scopus-indexed journals until 2019. We analyze the methodological and conceptual development of spatially related CBCFs and provide guidance for future research. While the recent emergence of several global multi-region input-output (MRIO) models has meant remarkable development in assessment accuracy, there is space for improvement in hybrid-modeling and increasing sectoral detail. Furthermore, it was recognized that studies published under the same CBCF label actually fall into two categories with different definitions and potentially significantly different outcomes. We suggest labeling these as Areal CF (ACF) and Personal CF (PCF) in the future. ACF encompasses the CBCF of economic activities within selected geographic boundaries, and the global production and delivery chain emissions of the goods and services consumed therein, including those consumed by visitors. PCF covers the consumption of the residents of the area regardless of where the consumption takes place but excludes the consumption of visitors within the area in question. ACF analyses typically include government consumption and investments, whereas PCF analyses normally exclude these. This scope issue is seldom brought up in individual studies, and it currently takes a lot of effort and expertise to classify existing studies, which hinders their usability for policy-making. In addition, we suggest that future studies position themselves among previous studies on the same location, discuss potential reasons for differences in the results, and consider these when drawing policy conclusions.
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 Social and environmental analysis of food waste abatement via the peer-to-peer sharing economy
Tamar Makov, Alon Shepon, Jonathan Krones, Clare Gupta, Marian Chertow
Nature Communications
Reducing food waste is widely recognized as critical for improving resource efficiency andmeeting the nutritional demand of a growing human population. Here we explore whether thesharing economy can provide meaningful assistance to reducing food waste in a relativelylow-impact and environmentally-sound way. Analyzing 170,000 postings on a popular peer-to-peer food-sharing app, wefind that over 19 months, 90t of food waste with an equivalentretail value of £0.7 million were collected by secondary consumers and diverted from dis-posal. An environmental analysis focused on Greater London reveals that these exchangeswere responsible for avoiding emission of 87–156t of CO2eq. Our results indicate that mostexchanges were among users associated with lower income yet higher levels of education.Thesefindings, together with the high collection rates (60% on average) suggest that thesharing economy may offer powerful means for improving resource efficiency and reducingfood waste.
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We're delighted to welcome 4 new SCORAI members who joined the network during the month of March, bringing our organization's total membership to 1214 people.
Luke Taylor | Loic Leray | Shalini Goel | Masahiko Hirao
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About SCORAI
SCORAI (Sustainable Consumption Research and Action Initiative) is an international knowledge network of researchers and practitioners committed to building a flourishing and ecologically-sound society by changing the way we consume. We advance research, disseminate knowledge, impact policies and support campaigns. SCORAI recognizes that technological innovation alone is insufficient to address climate change and environmental threats. Therefore we support transformative changes in the economy, institutions and culture.
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