Seeking participants for a panel on strategic interventions for sustainable consumption
michael....@gmail.com
Dear Colleagues,
Apologies for intruding into your Inbox, and for cross-postings.
RIFS, the Research Institute for Sustainability, based in Potsdam, is hosting a conference from 3 - 5 December 2025 on “Tough Conversations in Tough Times.” One strand of the meetings will focus on consumption, especially on notions of sustainable consumption, sufficiency, and consumption corridors as they connect to issues of social justice and environmental degradation. Public conversation about how much is enough, the limitations of green growth, and the links between happiness, security and limits has always been difficult, though perhaps never so much as now, during this current moment of political upheaval and economic instability. How might scholars, practitioners, and advocates of sustainable consumption and linked concepts productively navigate these challenging times, in support of human and non-human flourishing?
The conference will feature roundtables, panels, and informal conversations on several “tough conversations,” including a panel on “strategic springboards for consumption corridors,” which I am organizing. I’ve attached a description of the panel to this email and reprint it below. I’m on the hunt for potential participants. If this is something that interests you, or if you know of someone who might be interested, please drop me a note off-list.
Much appreciated, and many thanks,
Michael
Forthcoming: The Living-Green Myth: The Promise and Limits of Lifestyle Environmentalism, Polity Press, 2025
Now available open access: Consumption Corridors: Living a Good Life Within Sustainable Limits, Routledge, 2021
Yale-NUS College, Singapore | Professor of Social Sciences, Environmental Studies |
Inaugural Head of Environmental Studies (2013 – 2022, 2024) | Distinguished Teaching Award - 2021 |
Convener, gep-ed (Environmental Studies Section, International Studies Association) |
Web: http://michaelmaniates.com |
Senior Visiting Professor of Environmental Studies, Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH, 2011 – 2013 |
Professor of Environmental Science and Political Science, Allegheny College, Meadville, PA, 1993 – 2013 |
BS (University of California), MA, PhD (Energy and Resources, University of California) |
Most people are eagerly groping for some medium, some way in
which they can bridge the gap between their morals and their practices.
--Saul Alinsky
For the RIFS Conference “Tough Conversations in Tough Times”
3 - 5 December 2025
Michael Maniates michael....@gmail.com
Strategic Springboards for Consumption Corridors
Consumption corridors, which Fuchs et al. (2021) describe as “a space between minimum consumption standards that provide every individual with the ability to live a good life, and maximum consumption standards that keep individuals from consuming in quantities or ways that hurt others’ chances to do the same,” are a necessary and contentious component of any path to a better future. Necessary because of the social, ethical, and ecological violence arising from deeply asymmetrical and continuously expanding levels of consumption. And contentious because of resistance by vested interests that benefit from an economic logic of expansion and appropriation, supported by powerful narratives about the imperatives of growth and the efficacy of technological innovation.
Efforts to overcome political and social opposition to consumption corridors will need to be strategically incremental, focusing on places and ways in which small wins and shrewd policy sequencing (e.g. Meckling et al. 2017) create positive feedback loops of expanding political support and policy implementation, echoing Levin et al.’s 2012 model of “applied forward reasoning.” No preliminary reconnaissance of these possible “places and ways” – where elements of consumption corridors are already supported, accepted, or pursued – yet exists in the scientific literature. This panel is conceived as a first step toward remedying this deficiency.
Consumption corridors as currently theorized do not yet exist. But their precursors do, in the form of existing or emerging norms, participatory governance practices, specific consumption-focused policies and practices, larger institutional forms, and the like. Identifying these precursors, understanding their evolution and operation, and strategizing about appropriate interventions (research, advocacy, organizing, storytelling, etc.) to escalate their salience and power could produce potent springboards for robust corridors while dodging unnecessary political struggle.
Fuchs, D., Sahakian, M., Gumbert, T., Di Giulio, A., Maniates, M., Lorek, S., & Graf, A. (2021). Consumption corridors: Living a good life within sustainable limits. Routledge
Levin, K., Cashore, B., Bernstein, S., & Auld, G. (2012). Overcoming the tragedy of super wicked problems: constraining our future selves to ameliorate global climate change. Policy sciences, 45(2), 123-152.
Meckling, J., Sterner, T., & Wagner, G. (2017). Policy sequencing toward decarbonization. Nature Energy, 2(12), 918-922.
Philip Vergragt
Dear Michael,
Thank you for organizing this event. I very much like the idea of “strategic interventions”.
With all due respect, I think that the vision of “consumption corridors” is not comprehensive enough. I think that for instance the concept of “Doughnut Economy”, which also encompasses the notion of upper and lower boundaries, is not only a much more appealing metaphor, but also better acknowledges the contextual issues like the economic system, power relationships, the dominant culture of growth, competition and consumerism, the existing infrastructure, etc. I would suggest including other metaphors and approaches in this workshop.
I wish you all the best,
Philip
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Heyman, Josiah M
Just curious: who has discussed this idea of a doughnut economy, either literally (that word) or generally the concept?
Many thanks,
Joe
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Rees, William E.
Kate Raworth is the Guru of doughnut economics. https://www.kateraworth.com/doughnut/
aka
William E Rees, PhD, FRSC
Professor Emeritus
UBC Faculty of Applied Science
"The ecologically necessary is politically infeasible, but the politically feasible is ecologically ineffective, when not catastrophic."
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Ilan Kelman
https://blogs.egu.eu/divisions/gd/2023/01/25/planetary-boundaries-a-framework-against-geodynamics
Joe Zammit-Lucia
Thanks for the useful links.
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Richard Rosen
Vadovics Edina
Dear Joe, dear all,
You may be interested to check the website of DEAL, or Doughnut Economics Action Lab, which is exactly about converting theory into tangible action. They are supporting communities, businesses, municipalities, etc. in their efforts to operationalise „the doughnut”, so to say, and provide a forum for exchanging relevant experience.
Visit https://doughnuteconomics.org/about-doughnut-economics and I also recommend subscribing to their newsletter.
Also, there was a large European research project in which researchers calculated the doughnut for many countries (not just European).
You can check at https://goodlife.leeds.ac.uk/national-snapshots/countries/.
Furthermore, there are various ongoing or completed research efforts to see how e.g. various sustainability initiatives are doing in terms of (selected) doughnut indicators, what could be done to improve them, etc.
So, I’d say there is a lot of ongoing effort to put the doughnut into practice, use it to create strategies, action programmes, inform policy, etc.
Best wishes,
Edina
Edina Vadovics
research director
GreenDependent Institute
Hungary, 2100 Gödöllő, Éva u. 4.
email: ed...@greendependent.org
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Jean Boucher
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Ilan Kelman
Jean Boucher
Thanks for helping me refine my language. After thinking things over, I believe I do mean the entire system, or at least the entire human economic system. I need to live in a world where the environment is valued, and this value is reflected in prices. This would apply to everything from flights and cars to dropping bombs, and any other goods and services we consume. I think that alone would be a significant help. Of course, we'd still have inequalities to address, but we've long needed to fix those issues anyway.
As John Lennon said, "You may call me a dreamer, but I'm not the only one." Hopefully, more people will join us in the dream.
Jean
Well, the system can only be sustainable once renewable energy is used to fly airplanes. The whole system is not the problem, just the source of energy for the airplanes. --- Rich Rosen