ABSTRACT
In both academic and public debates on sustainable consumption, it is commonly claimed that a reduction in consumption can benefit the environment and make us happier—often referred to as the ‘double dividend’. In this chapter we unpick the double dividend, characterising its key evidence, arguments, and assumptions, and demonstrating its effects. We show how the double dividend deploys knowledge from the psychological and social sciences to construct an argument based on happiness, human nature, and needs, in an attempt to refute the economic orthodoxy that underpins the received view of consumption. In doing so we expose the risks associated with recasting sustainable consumption in this way: in particular that the logic of the double dividend imagines an individualised and rational subject who responds to incentivisation and self-interest. Furthermore, a focus on happiness as a social goal risks distracting from the core goals of sustainable consumption: to end environmental degradation and material inequality.
