ABSTRACT
This concluding chapter returns to dimensions of consumption explored in the introductory chapter, making connections to the cases of fast-moving consumer goods and plastic pollution, e-commerce and Big Logistics, and fossil fuel sustainability pledges examined in Chapters 1–3, respectively. It discusses the relationship between environmentally damaging overconsumption and consumer/promotional culture, underlining how advertising does cultural work that helps sustain an environmentally unsustainable system. Drawing on the Frankfurt School, this chapter points out how, under consumer capitalism, commercial media, technology, and even dominant understandings of ‘progress’ are conditioned by economic requirements. Building on ideas developed by the degrowth movement, Hartmut Rosa, and others, it is possible to foster alternative ways of relating to one another, our objects, and the planet. In addition to summing up the book’s conclusions, the chapter gestures towards potential starting points for forging a less resource-intensive future, underlining, first and foremost, the need for transformative political, economic, and social change.
