City Research Online

Abstract

Sustainability issues, such as the climate crisis and the related social crisis, are considered to be some of the greatest challenges humanity faces at the moment (Davies 2020; Schor 2014). Research views sustainability as consisting of both environmental and social elements (Lim 2016). It is therefore imperative to study consumption across the various manifestations of sustainability, both to advance academic understanding of the phenomenon and provide practical implications for a better world through marketing (Chandy et al. 2021). Indeed, this is a key mission for marketing, which is defined as the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large (AMA 2025). One way to fully comprehend the processes that apply to society at large is to examine how meanings are developed within the broader ecology as a setting for human activity (Hanssens and Pauwels 2016; Karababa and Kjeldgaard 2014).

This Ph.D. dissertation aims to unpack how the meanings of sustainable consumption, environmental and social, are shaped and provide novel insights and a conceptualisation that engages the key actors, consumers, firms and public policymakers (“Doctoral Degree Examination Policy” 2024). It adopts a Consumer Culture Theory (CCT) perspective, which strives to systematically link individual level (or idiographic) meanings to different levels of cultural processes and structure and then to situate these relationships within historical and marketplace contexts (Arnould and Thompson 2005). In extension, it contextualises the dual dimensions of sustainability, environmental and social, and looks for the systemic and structural elements of sustainable consumption issues as they manifest emically and etically for a specific sociohistorical context. It follows a qualitative research design to allow for an in-depth exploration of meaning in a context of sustainable practices (Bazeley 2020; Merriam and Tisdell 2015).

To unpack my research question of how the meanings of sustainable consumption are shaped, I will first provide the theoretical background of the dissertation (Marshall and Rossman 2014). This part defines the concept of sustainable consumption, presents the dominant view, develops a critique of the dominant view, and introduces the consumer culture theory perspective on the topic. This is followed by the research approach, research aim, research contributions and the organisation of the three papers in this dissertation. Following the dissertation overview, all three papers will be presented.

Publication Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HF Commerce H Social Sciences > HN Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform H Social Sciences > HT Communities. Classes. Races H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare
Departments:	Bayes Business School > Bayes Business School Doctoral Theses Bayes Business School > Faculty of Management Doctoral Theses

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