Sustainable lifestyles: sites, practices and policy

Abstract

Pro-environmental behaviour change remains a high priority for many governments and agencies and there are now numerous programmes aimed at encouraging citizens to adopt sustainable forms of living. However, although programmes for addressing behaviour change in and around the home are well developed, there has been significantly less attention paid to activities beyond this site of practice. This is despite the environmental implications of consumption choices for leisure, tourism and work-related activities. Notwithstanding the extensive literatures which have explored environmental practices at a wide range of specific sites, there has been little research on the relationships between sites of practice and environmental behaviours. Using data from a series of in-depth interviews, this paper identifies two major challenges for academics and practitioners concerned with understanding and promoting more environmentally-responsible behaviour. First, attention must shift beyond the home as a site of environmental practice to consider the ways in which individuals respond to exhortations towards ‘greener’ lifestyles in other high-consumption and carbon-intensive contexts, particularly leisure and tourism. Second, in broadening the scope of environmental practice, policy makers need to re-visit their reliance on segmentation models and related social marketing approaches. This is in the light of data that suggest those with strong environmental commitments in the home are often reluctant to engage in similar commitments in other sites of practice.