Members of Transition Bath welcomed a PhD researcher, Cristina Longo, to their ranks in the period up to 2014. Cristina was conducting research into the practice of sustainable consumption: everyday spending being guided by concern for planetary sustainability. In her discussions with us, the individual dilemmas were more obvious than the solutions, to the extent that a recent summary of her research identifies that ‘the more knowledgeable people become, the more it can result in paralysis or the inability to act on one’s sustainability ideals or goals’.
For us, this is not a lost cause but a further catalyst to pool our efforts and to support each other. It also serves as a reminder of how complex sustainable consumption is for those not active, knowledgeable and committed to such principles.
Cristina’s PhD thesis is publicly available.
Recent summary https://theconversation.com/how-too-much-information-can-stop-people-from-being-sustainable-consumers-72316
Publicly available http://opus.bath.ac.uk/47100/1/LongoC.pdf