Rethinking Sustainability – Principles and Practice

The open access book "Rethinking Sustainability – Principles and Practice" introduces innovations in how sustainability is studied, taught, and practiced across academic and professional contexts. It offers a comprehensive overview of current principles and practices in the field of sustainability and examines them from diverse geographical and academic perspectives.

The content is split into four structured thematic sections:

• Teaching, learning and understanding sustainability
• Core debates and controversies in sustainability
• Transdisciplinarity and sustainability in practice
• The role of higher education and academia

Designed as a hybrid publication, the book combines pedagogical features – such as study exercises and learning prompts – with the thematic depth of a scholarly edited volume. This format makes it invaluable for students, educators, researchers, practitioners, and policymakers seeking both foundational knowledge and advanced insights to sustainability research.

Sustainable consumption through a circular economy geared towards sufficiency

Dr. Kathleen Jacobs, Senior Researcher in the Circular Society Research Unit at the Wuppertal Institute, has authored the chapter "Sustainable Consumption: Foundations and Insights into a Sufficiency-Orientated Circular Economy". Rather than addressing technical, political or sector-specific aspects of the circular economy, Jacobs focuses on the often-neglected aspect of human behaviour: in her chapter, she examines sustainable consumption patterns. First, she introduces key definitions and concepts of sustainable consumption, such as the concepts of "weak" and "strong" sustainable consumption. She then discusses various types of sustainable consumer behaviour and compares different approaches, such as eco-friendly consumption and collaborative consumption.

Jacobs pays particular attention to the "attitude-behaviour gap", that is, the difference between consumers’ attitudes and their behaviour: Jacobs explains typical barriers to sustainable consumer behaviour – and concludes by outlining what sustainable consumption should look like in order to promote the transition to a society based on sufficiency and circularity.

The book is available to download free of charge via the following link.