‘Green’ attitudes and sustainable household consumption of energy and transport: six conditions that improve attitude–behaviour consistency

In Agenda 21 – the action plan from the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992 – sustainable consumption was presented as a major challenge for achieving sustainable development: ‘the major cause of the continued deterioration of the global environment is the unsustainable pattern of consumption and production, particularly in industrialized countries, which is a matter of grave concern, aggravating poverty and imbalance’ (UN 1992: §4.3). Agenda 21 addresses both consumption and production, which are closely linked. Indeed, it is impossible to imagine the one without the other. Th is essay focuses on consumption.1