ABSTRACT
This chapter makes the central argument that environmental sociologists need to conceptualize sustainable consumption behavior, life spies, and daily routines in such a way as to avoid the pitfalls of many of the so called micro-approaches that have been developed to date. It uses the social practices model to analyze the process of diflusion of environmental innovations in utility sectors, and to discuss the emergence of a variety of lifestyles in the field of the sustainable consumption of energy, water, and waste services. The chapter describes the general policy discourse on consumer-oriented environmental politics and look at some of the most relevant policy experiments in the field of sustainable consumption in the Netherlands in order to develop the future agenda for research and policy-making on sustainable consumption. It ends by arguing that an international network of social scientists working in the field of sustainable consumption can help significantly in developing a comparative perspective to sustainable consumption in a globalizing world.
