Authors: Irene Maldini, Ingun Grimstad Klepp & Kirsi Laitala Abstract Consumer goods environmental policy is increasingly focusing on product durability and product lifetime extension (PLE) to reduce their impact. Given the growing societal relevance of PLE, this review investigates the… The environmental impact of product lifetime extension: a literature review and research agenda
A new research article in Journal of Sustainable Marketing address EU’s Textile Strategy’s blatant avoidance of the volumes issue, and raises the question of why. In the Journal of Sustainable Marketing, a new article penned… EU’s fear of addressing overproduction uncovered in eye-opening research
The objective in this report is to better understand how the increased product lifetime option has been positioned in policies over
the past twenty years. By means of policy document analysis, we explore product lifetime positioning in the EU’s circular economy
policies, Norwegian political party programs and official documents, environmental NGO documents, consumer organisation policies
and product policies. Overall, we find little focus on product lifetime between 2000-2015, however, there has been a massive
increase over the past five years. There is still a long way to go in developing appropriate policy instruments to address product
lifetime.
The textile and clothing industry is considered as one of the most polluting industries in the world. Still, the regulation of environmental hazards connected to the industry is very limited, and much responsibility is placed on the shoulders of consumers. One of the few ways that ordinary consumers can seek to influence the textile and clothing industry is through their own consumption practices and their wallet. This article departs from the discourse on sustainable consumption and the role of the consumer as an agent for change, and the article investigates the characteristics of the consumers who practice deliberate environmentally sustainable consumption of textiles and clothing. This is done through the lens of political consumption. Based on a cross-national survey conducted in five Western European countries, factors that have been found to predict general political consumption in previous research are tested on the field of textiles and clothing. The findings demonstrate both similarities and some discrepancies with previous studies of political consumption as well as significant country variations.