In an era of dramatic environmental change, social change is desperately needed to curb burgeoning consumption. Many calls to action have focused on individual behaviour　or technological innovation, with relative silence from the social sciences on other modes and methods of intervening in social life. This book shows　how we can go　beyond behaviour change in the pursuit of sustainability.

Inspired by the 'practice turn' in consumption studies, this interdisciplinary book looks through the lens of social practice theory to explore important and timely questions...

Change and development are going on all around us. On both an international platform, as well as at the local governmental and community level, governments, decision and policy makers constantly strive to improve the world in which we live, seeking to make it better and to improve quality of life.

This book focuses on such development in the context of localism in the UK. It strips the principle of local sustainability down to its constituent parts and considers the extent to which it can be said to be central to local life. As part of this, it presents the case for the importance...

Current images of sustainability are often designed to instil fear and force change, not because we believe in it, but because we fear the consequences of inaction.

Moving away from negative portrayals of sustainability, this book identifies the factors that motivate people to aspire towards sustainable living. It introduces the notion of sustainability as an "object of desire" that will allow people not to be scared of the future but rather to dream about it and look forward to a better quality of life. Tracing the history of major changes in our society that have dramatically...

The power of capital is the power to target our attention, mould market-ready identities, and reduce the public realm to an endless series of choices. This has far-reaching implications for our psychological, physical and spiritual well-being, and ultimately for our global ecology. In this consumer age, the underlying teachings of Buddhist mindfulness offer more than individual well-being and resilience. They also offer new sources of critical inquiry into our collective condition, and may point, in time, to regulatory initiatives in the field of well-being.

This book draws together...

This book breaks new ground in the studies of green transition. It frames the ongoing transformation in terms of a "battle of modernities" with the emerging vision of ecomodernity as the final destination. It also offers a systematic exploration of the potential for extensive transformation of carbon-intensive sectors - with a focus on energy and transport - towards a low or post-carbon economy. The book does so in a comparative perspective, by pointing to a diversity of techno-economic and institutional solutions in the mature Western economies, and in the rapidly growing East and...

Responsibility for future generations is easily postulated in the abstract but it is much more difficult to set it to work in the concrete. It requires some changes in individual and institutional attitudes that are in opposition to what has been called the "systems variables" of industrial society: individual freedom, consumerism, and equality.

The Politics of Sustainability from Philosophical Perspectives seeks to examine the motivational and institutional obstacles standing in the way of a consistent politics of sustainability and to look for strategies to...

The history of human rights suggests that individuals should be empowered in their natural, political, political, social and economic vulnerabilities. States within the international arena hold each other responsible for doing just that and support or interfere where necessary. States are to protect these essential human vulnerabilities, even when this is not a matter of self-interest. This function of human rights is recognized in contexts of intervention, genocide, humanitarian aid and development.

This book develops the idea of environmental obligations as long-term...

Dealing with time is intimately linked to sustainability, because sustainability, at its core, involves long-term ethical claims. To live up to them, decision and policy-making has to consider long-term development of society, economy, and nature. However, dealing with time and such long-term development is a notoriously difficult subject, both in science and, in particular, in practical decision and policy making.

Rooted in philosophical and scientific reasoning, this book explores how the concept of time can be incorporated into effective practical action. The book describes a system...