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Social Innovations in Creative Communities for Sustainable Consumption: is it promising?

Khan, Shahzia LU (2008) IMEN56 20081
The International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics
Abstract
In the current discourse on sustainable consumption, there have been major interventions by the
businesses and governments, focusing on changing consumer behavior through greening products and
services. However, the problem of consumption is not limited to greening products and environmental
impacts, but it is also a social issue. Together with the increasing consumption around the world and
materialistic aspirations, a decline in well being and happiness can also be observed, particularly in
industrialized countries. Recently, the sustainable consumption process has started to draw attention to
individual value shifts reflected on peoples consumption patterns and social behavior. To examine and
explain phenomenon, examples from... (More)
In the current discourse on sustainable consumption, there have been major interventions by the
businesses and governments, focusing on changing consumer behavior through greening products and
services. However, the problem of consumption is not limited to greening products and environmental
impacts, but it is also a social issue. Together with the increasing consumption around the world and
materialistic aspirations, a decline in well being and happiness can also be observed, particularly in
industrialized countries. Recently, the sustainable consumption process has started to draw attention to
individual value shifts reflected on peoples consumption patterns and social behavior. To examine and
explain phenomenon, examples from creative communities are being analysed. According to some
experts on sustainable production and consumption, these creative communities are showing
promising outcomes through increasing well being and developing sustainable lifestyles. Still, they have
been unable to disseminate their practices to the mainstream markets. This indicates a need for
developing strategies to explore the creative communities in terms their values, principles, social
innovation strategies, practices and their perspectives of sustainability. Unless these are well understood
and an exchange platform is established between relevant actors including citizens, it is unlikely that
creative community practices (i.e. sustainable lifestyle cases) will be incorporated the society as a whole.
This research addresses the challenges and opportunities facing creative communities, their behaviours
and social innovation solutions using both theoretical and empirical studies. The results are based on
five field case study communities from the US, Scotland, Sweden and Italy, each with different types of
social innovations. The main findings on individual value orientation and action incurring benefits
demonstrate the potential of the communities or their practices to be adapted by wider society.
Moreover, the nature of their practices, which highly depend on ethical responsibility, transfer of
knowledge and networking relations, have shown the potential of linking between creative communitycitizens,
external actors-community and between individuals. This can be established through creating
relational spaces, which can take varied forms to stimulate social innovation in the agenda of
sustainable consumption. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Khan, Shahzia LU
supervisor
organization
course
IMEN56 20081
year
type
H1 - Master's Degree (One Year)
subject
keywords
Sustainable Consumption
language
English
id
1413894
date added to LUP
2009-06-03 14:00:04
date last changed
2009-06-03 14:00:04
@misc{1413894,
  abstract     = {{In the current discourse on sustainable consumption, there have been major interventions by the
businesses and governments, focusing on changing consumer behavior through greening products and
services. However, the problem of consumption is not limited to greening products and environmental
impacts, but it is also a social issue. Together with the increasing consumption around the world and
materialistic aspirations, a decline in well being and happiness can also be observed, particularly in
industrialized countries. Recently, the sustainable consumption process has started to draw attention to
individual value shifts reflected on peoples consumption patterns and social behavior. To examine and
explain phenomenon, examples from creative communities are being analysed. According to some
experts on sustainable production and consumption, these creative communities are showing
promising outcomes through increasing well being and developing sustainable lifestyles. Still, they have
been unable to disseminate their practices to the mainstream markets. This indicates a need for
developing strategies to explore the creative communities in terms their values, principles, social
innovation strategies, practices and their perspectives of sustainability. Unless these are well understood
and an exchange platform is established between relevant actors including citizens, it is unlikely that
creative community practices (i.e. sustainable lifestyle cases) will be incorporated the society as a whole.
This research addresses the challenges and opportunities facing creative communities, their behaviours
and social innovation solutions using both theoretical and empirical studies. The results are based on
five field case study communities from the US, Scotland, Sweden and Italy, each with different types of
social innovations. The main findings on individual value orientation and action incurring benefits
demonstrate the potential of the communities or their practices to be adapted by wider society.
Moreover, the nature of their practices, which highly depend on ethical responsibility, transfer of
knowledge and networking relations, have shown the potential of linking between creative communitycitizens,
external actors-community and between individuals. This can be established through creating
relational spaces, which can take varied forms to stimulate social innovation in the agenda of
sustainable consumption.}},
  author       = {{Khan, Shahzia}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{Social Innovations in Creative Communities for Sustainable Consumption: is it promising?}},
  year         = {{2008}},
}