Current calls for deep societal transformation stress the need to go beyond green consumption and aim for the reduction of material consumption. Such a shift is enacted by grassroots initiatives around reuse, repair and sharing. However, the possibility of postconsumerist perspectives and practices to reach a broader audience is affected by discursive opportunity structures (DOS) formed in public debate. To understand the DOS it is relevant to pay attention both to the continuous normalisation of consumption and to the ways in which alternatives are represented. To develop new analytical tools for examining what postconsumerist initiatives are up against, we introduce the concept of banal consumerism: mundane, habitual expressions that reproduce consumer culture. Through an empirical study of Swedish daily newspapers, we construct the basis for a typology of different expressions of banal consumerism. We find several expressions, of which the massive advertising of consumer goods is the most common but editorial material also plays an important role. This largely disabling DOS is then put in relation to the potentially enabling opportunities entailed in the existing media coverage of postconsumerist initiatives, practices and perspectives. The results show that postconsumerist initiatives and practices are newsworthy and presented as commendable. The fact that high levels of material consumption negatively impact the environment and life on the planet is widely accepted. To argue for degrowth or criticise consumerism is, however, controversial. Thus, support for postconsumerist practices coexist with massive expressions of banal consumerism, creating a complex set of DOS for the postconsumerist initiatives to navigate.

This Brief Report describes the research and key lessons learned in the initial four-year phase of the research program Mistra Sustainable Consumption that seeks to stimulate a transition to more sustainable consumption in Sweden. The program is transdisciplinary and includes approximately 20 researchers and a similar number of societal partners from the public, private, and civil society sectors. The aim of this report is to summarize the findings from the program about how and under what conditions potentially sustainable niche practices can become more mainstream and how such a transition can be enabled through civil society, business models, and policy innovation. The thematic focus of the program is on practices related to home furnishing, vacationing, and eating and we have identified potentially sustainable consumption practices, analyzed several of them with respect to their environmental and social impacts, and highlighted potential enablers for mainstreaming such practices. One key conclusion is that it is possible to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by approximately 40 percent by changing customary consumption practices without the need for large investments or new policies. This is an encouraging finding, but it is not adequate to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement. Therefore, more fundamental changes will be needed, including the exploration of sufficiency-oriented policy tools.

Conceptualizations of scaling sustainable practices tend to focus on the uptake of new technologies and practices, whereas the scaling or maintaining of convival practices with a long history has received less attention. In this article, we explore mainstreaming of cycling along three contemporary paths: the spread of e-bikes, bike sharing, and bike kitchens. We develop an analytical framework for assessing mainstreaming of sustainable practices and its impacts on conviviality - exploring which new groups are reached and new forms of usage opened up, as well as the impacts on accessibility, adaptability, and socio-ecological relations. Our analysis shows that the spread of e-bikes and bike sharing are associated with a certain loss of conviviality, while bike kitchens explicitly aim to maintain conviviality. The mainstreaming paths also widen and deepen the practice and notion of cycling. We conclude by reflecting on policy implications and how strategies for more convivial mainstreaming can be organized.

Many cities in the Global North that aspire to be at the forefront of sustainable urbanism have adopted Sharing City agendas. In the development of socially inclusive cities, grassroots sharing initiatives have been seen as key in disseminating more sustainable forms of provisioning. This article examines a case where ambitions to accommodate grassroots sharing initiatives failed, namely in the renewal of the sustainability and sharing-branded area of Masthuggskajen in Gothenburg, Sweden. In order to analyse the interactions and power relations between governance bodies and grassroots sharing initiatives, and how these are shaped by spatial dimensions, we explore the opportunities for grassroots initiatives to influence sustainability goals in the development of high-profile urban districts. Our findings suggest that while areas branded as sharing economy districts acknowledge the potential of grassroots initiatives, high rents precipitate the displacement or co-optation of non-commercial actors, thereby preventing deeper transformation. In more peripheral areas, grassroots initiatives are more likely to thrive, but often fail to reach beyond a critical niche. In order for grassroots sharing initiatives to influence the meanings and practices of sustainability, this spatial paradox, we argue, calls for political solutions at both the local and national level.

In the circular economy discourse it is stressed that products ought to be repairable and that repair work is assumed to be growing. However, repair can be organised and performed in different ways – by corporate entities, independent repairers, laypersons and communities. Some corporations are integrating repair and maintenance into their offering, while simultaneously restricting consumers to open, repair or modify their products. In opposition to such developments, there is a movement for “right to repair”, which works for consumers’ legal rights to repair and modify products, pushing for the free availability of spare parts and manuals. Recent years have also seen a growth of repair cafés and other forms of DIY community repair spaces. This paper explores the discourses of DIY community repair through two Swedish case studies – an NGO-led nationwide repair campaign and a local government initiative of open DIY repair spaces. Our case studies show how DIY community repair works towards enabling all, particularly marginalised groups, to participate and live well in a low-impact future. In contrast to the mainstream circular economy discourse, the purpose of community repair is not only about repairing broken stuff and reducing waste, but about building social relations and practicing non-consumerist forms of citizenship. By elucidating these different perspectives on repair – who is to perform it, with what skills and for what purposes – we highlight how the transition to future, more circular economies, can be enacted and steered in ways that allow for different roles and powers for citizen-consumers.

In transitions toward more sustainable and just societies, there is an urgent need to address overconsumption and to include a sufficiency perspective. This article contributes to previous research by exploring what a framework for a politics of sufficiency might entail and how such a framework can be used to analyze existing public policy. Our case analysis is the policy field of sustainable consumption and waste prevention in the context of Sweden. Based on interviews with public officials and civil society representatives, we identify key areas to address when aiming for a sufficiency orientation. Our results suggest that local and regional governments that strive for a commitment to sufficiency should formulate clear goals that serve to set environmental limits, for instance, in the form of carbon budgets, and then steer toward well-being for the inhabitants within these limits. Efforts should be made to secure stable funding for work within sustainable consumption and waste prevention, especially for projects with synergies in terms of reducing consumption and strengthening non-market relations. Using public procurement is another key tool. In the absence of an overall national politics of sufficiency, the above-mentioned strategies can be and already are to some degree, used by authorities in Sweden.

Sharing economy platforms have been transforming production and consumption systems in cities around the world. While the sharing economy may contribute to addressing sustainability issues, its actual economic, social and environmental impacts remain poorly understood. Advancing more sustainably promising forms of sharing and leveraging its benefits, while circumventing its pitfalls, is becoming increasingly important in the era of Covid-19 and climate crisis, economic downturn and uncertainty, and loss of social connectedness, particularly in anonymous urban environments. The ways to capitalise on strengths of the sharing economy are still poorly understood. In particular, the roles and perspectives of users, businesses and municipal governments in institutionalising the sharing economy in various geographical contexts are essential to examine. This volume seeks to advance the research field by focusing on four research areas: 1) understanding the sharing economy conceptually; 2) user perspectives on the sharing economy; 3) business perspective on the sharing economy; and 4) urban governance perspective on the sharing economy. The twenty articles in this volume discuss sustainability implications of the sharing economy from different perspectives, in various geographical contexts, and drawing on a range of disciplines. The volume makes a significant contribution by bringing in empirical findings from emerging and developing economies, including Brazil, China, Indonesia, Poland, the Philippines, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam, thereby supplementing more frequently discussed perspectives from high-income countries. The volume also outlines the course for future research. (C) 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.