ABSTRACT
In discussions on sustainable lifestyles, it is common to consider individuals as
consumers – users of energy and transport, and purchasers of food, for example –
and the outcomes of that consumption: waste, pollution, demands on land and
other resources. This sustainability focus is consistent with other branches of
social science that increasingly recognize the importance of consumption for an
individual’s sense of their identity (Ransome 2005). But as the contributors to
this volume underline, sustainability also encapsulates a much broader view and
set of behaviours. In this chapter, our focus is on individuals behaving not as
consumers but as employees. The majority of adults spend a large proportion of
their time in paid work and our particular interest lies in how individuals
experience and sustain the interplay between their work and non-work lives.
Specifically, we consider the adequacy of assumptions and generalizations that
have come to characterize the majority regarding discussions of this aspect of
contemporary life.
