Page 158 - Sustainability Communication Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Theoritical Foundations

Chapter 13
Communicating Sustainable Consumption

Lucia A. Reisch and Sabine Bietz

Abstract This chapter provides a general overview of sustainable consumption as
an object of politics and research. Specifically it looks into the challenges to develop
communication campaigns that will motivate a broad public to engage in more sus-
tainable lifestyles. An emotional, experience-oriented, mass-medial communication
concept based on an “ecotainment” strategy can successfully increase interest and
lower acceptance barriers towards sustainable consumption in the general popula-
tion. As a case of good practice, findings of a communication project that aimed at
increasing the public’s attention to sustainable consumption issues are presented.

Keywords Consumption • Communication campaigns • Sustainable lifestyle
• ‘Project Balance’ • Ecotainment

Sustainable Consumption as an Object
of Politics and Research

Sustainable consumption has been coined ‘the underdog’ in the arena of sustainability
initiatives (Kolandai-Matchett 2009). While conceptual approaches and empirical
evidence on sustainable consumption issues have rapidly increased over the years
(see Clark 2006), efforts to communicate this concept have received only little
political attention in most countries worldwide.

L.A. Reisch (*)
Department of Intercultural Communication and Management,
Copenhagen Business School, Copenhagen, Germany
e-mail: lr.ikl@cbs.dk

S.Bietz
Institute for Consumer Behaviour & European Consumer Policy, SRH Hochschule Calw,
University of Applied Sciences, Lederstr. 1, 75365 Calw, Germany

J. Godemann and G. Michelsen (eds.), Sustainability Communication: Interdisciplinary 141
Perspectives and Theoretical Foundations, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-1697-1_13,
© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011