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This study addresses how the sustainability crisis may be overcome by using alternatives to the conventional economic growth paradigm. Based on a literature review, the paper identifies and discusses three alternatives, namely negative, zero and positive economic growth. These alternatives are compared from a feasibility and policy perspective in relation to the transition toward sustainable development. The three alternatives are associated with very far‐reaching sets of policies that have different focal points with regard to how the paradigm shift from the conventional growth paradigm can be realized. All these alternatives, however, challenge the effectiveness of market forces. The shortcomings of the alternatives (resistance to voluntary transition with negative or zero growth, no proper consideration of the rebound effect for positive growth) hinder the transition and must be further addressed by policy‐makers in public and private sectors, as well as by civil society.

The consumption of food is associated with significant environmental impacts, and the disposable incomes of individuals and households play an important role in what food is consumed. It may be assumed that the higher the income, the more food consumed. However, it may also be supposed that people with higher incomes are more likely to lead healthier lifestyles and therefore consume more moderately.This analysis is based on food consumption data from the Household budget and living conditions survey of the Hungarian Central Statistical Office, combined with the latest database from the Global Footprint Network. Results show that a higher level of consumption is able to offset a healthier consumption structure. For the upper three income deciles ecological footprints for food consumption are not notably higher, as the individuals in these groups use their higher incomes to purchase and consume more fruit and vegetables. A scenario analysis is carried out along the income deciles to illustrate the changes n...

Considerable progress has been made in Europe towards cutting GHG emissions during the last decade, but this achievement is partly due to the delocalization of manufacturing industries to emerging countries. Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the current emission accounting method is production-based and cannot fully capture this effect. The use of such a method is clearly unfavourable for emerging countries and could lead to difficulties in engaging them in climate policy negotiations. The consumption-based approach represents the other extreme in apportioning emission responsibilities. This article proposes the beneficiary-based shared responsibility approach, which outperforms previous methods in terms of scientific justification and political acceptability. Consumer countries benefit from enjoying the product itself, while producing countries benefit from the production process, which provides them with employment, government income, and company profit. Thus, emissions re...

Introduction Food consumption has become an increasingly critical challenge for policy makers and diet more generally is now a target for explicit consumption-related policies. McMichael et al. (2007) argue that in recent years the focal point of interaction between food, energy, and health has shifted radically. Food provides energy and nutrients, but its provisioning requires concomitant energy expenditures. For example, intensive agriculture and overconsumption give rise to a difficult array of challenges harming both the environment and human health. At the same time, ensuring access to adequate food is vital, although overeating and the subsequent consequences of high levels of obesity have reached epidemic proportions in some subpopulations. For example, in the European Union more than 53% of the population has been estimated to be overweight (IASO, 2008) and this fraction is increasing (WHO, 2008). Reductions in meat consumption could lower the risk of obesity, as well as heart disease and cancer (EEA, 2010).From a global perspective, consumption of energy-dense foods has increased during the last few decades. Disproportionate intake of nutrients and an unbalanced diet indicate low fruit and vegetable consumption and excessive reliance on junk food and meat, which has been linked to neuropsychiatric disorders, high cholesterol levels, and, because of related patterns of physical inactivity, excessive weight and obesity (Duchin, 2005). These conditions impose high health-related costs on society and decrease individual well-being (EEA, 2010). According to the European Environment Agency (2010), increasing caloric intake, together with sedentary lifestyles, is the root of the problem. Contemporary modes of food consumption and production also increase environmental burdens in terms of land and water use, biodiversity loss, and greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions (Lorek & Spangenberg, 2001a; Tukker et al. 2006; Jackson & Papathanasopoulou, 2008; Druckman & Jackson, 2010; Reisch et al. 2010; Reisch et al. 2011; Tukker et al. 2011; Csutora, 2012).Overconsumption of meat is of special concern. Thirty-five percent of global GHG emissions generated by agriculture are associated with livestock production. As for the environmental impacts of meat consumption, it has been extensively demonstrated that a heavy meat-based diet requires three times as much land area as a vegetarian diet, due to the resource intensiveness of meat production (Durning & Brough, 1991; Ehrlich et al. 1995; Goodland 1997; Pimentel et al. 1997; Subak, 1999; York & Gossard, 2004).The linkages among physical activity, food consumption, and environmental impacts have to date received quite limited attention. While researchers have explored the relationship between actual and healthy food consumption (e.g., Wallen et al. 2004; Collins & Fairchild, 2007; Frey & Barrett, 2007; Mcdiarmid et al. 2011; Vieux et al. 2012), there are few examples of work that have deployed a differentiated approach to consider the nutritional demands of various occupational groups. This article seeks to fill this gap by applying a consumption-based approach both regarding the methodology and the research question, differentiating between the ecological footprints from food consumption of different occupational groups. The next section defines "sustainable food consumption" and "healthy food" and reviews prior studies measuring the environmental impact of food consumption. It is followed by the methodology and the research results.Defining Sustainable Food Consumption Different definitions of "sustainable food consumption" and "sustainable diet" have been advanced over the past few decades. Erdmann et al. (1999) claim that the sustainability of food consumption is predicated on four dimensions: economic, environmental, health, and social. However, they give no guidance as to how these facets should be weighted when putting sustainable food consumption into practice. …

Preceding research has made hardly any attempt to measure the ecological impacts of pro-environmental behaviour in an objective way. Those impacts were rather supposed or calculated. The research described herein scrutinized the ecological impact reductions achieved through pro-environmental behaviour and raised the question how much of a reduction in carbon footprint can be achieved through voluntary action without actually affecting the socio-economic determinants of life. A survey was carried out in order to measure the difference between the ecological footprint of “green” and “brown” consumers. No significant difference was found between the ecological footprints of the two groups—suggesting that individual pro-environmental attitudes and behaviour do not always reduce the environmental impacts of consumption. This finding resulted in the formulation of a new proposition called the BIG (behaviour–impact gap) problem, which is an interesting addition to research in the field of environmental awareness gaps.

Consumer policy approaches regarding green products and solutions can be differentiated by their main focus. “Green positioning” is basically targeted at environmentally aware consumers, while “efficiency-focused positioning” concentrates on the efficiency gain of the product or solution, targeting the whole society, regardless of consumers' environmental awareness. The paper argues that the scope and total environmental benefit can be increased if green products or solutions are promoted in different ways, not only as “green” but also based on other arguments (like cost-efficiency, return on investment, etc.). The paper suggests a model for improving the efficiency of greenhouse gas (GHG)-related consumer policy. Based on the marginal social cost curve and the marginal private cost curve, different (green, yellow, and red) zones of action are identified. GHG mitigation options chosen from those zones are then evaluated with the help of profiling method, addressing the barriers to implementation. Profiling may help design an implementation strategy for the selected options and make consumer policy more effective and acceptable for mass market. Case study results show three different ways of positioning of GHG-related consumer policy in Hungary from 2000 and give practical examples of profiling, based on the latest marginal social cost curve and the contemporary energy saving policy of the state regarding the residential sector.