| Abstract: | Consumers are essentially decision‐makers, with a strong influence in the product chain. Establishing sustainable global resource systems, across developed and developing nations, is dependent on finding ways to encourage consumers to prioritise environmental issues as one of the key determinants of their consumption decisions. More than this, all stakeholders in the product chain must become aware of their impacts on the psychological, social, cultural, physical and economic environments that predispose consumers to certain approaches when making consumption decisions. Conventional science has not provided the solutions for several reasons. Pure science and technology have developed according to different agendas and interests. Science has generally not been communicated in ways that allow consumers to make day‐to‐day decisions, fully informed of the implications. The barriers to genuine interdisciplinary research required to generate socially relevant solutions to the complex problems associated with traditional consumption patterns are only now being slowly overcome. Due to its interdisciplinary and integrated nature, consumer science provides a theoretical platform from which to formulate the core questions, articulated within a framework in which all stakeholders can contribute in synergistic ways to reverse the escalating rates of resource depletion, disparities of resources between groups, loss of species and pervasive pollution. There is no other discipline which offers an encompassing and integrated framework for the responsible communication of science necessary to describe the problems. Most importantly, consumer science has the capacity to research and interpret individual and social behaviour in ways which lead to innovative and effective controls to improve and sustain new standards for living on this vulnerable plant. |
