Ethical consumption in three stages: a focus on sufficiency and care

ABSTRACT Given the excessive consumption of natural resources in affluent contexts across the world, this paper argues that there is a need to discuss, critique, and advance the concept of ethical consumption, which is commonly understood as involving only relatively minor practices of consumption refinement, such as acts of boycotting and buycotting. The paper does so by linking ethical consumption to the concepts of sufficiency and care and suggesting a temporal categorization. The sufficiency lens is applied to show why and how the understanding of ethical consumption cannot be restricted to that of consumption refinement but must also address consumption reduction, due to high ecological and climate footprints in many countries. A temporal categorization is helpful for further expanding on this idea. Therefore, we propose understanding ethical consumption in three stages; pre-consumption, consumption and post-consumption. Finally, we emphasize the need to nurture a culture of responsibility and a sense of caring for others, including people, materials, and nature. Such a more comprehensive framework could help bring attention to both the promises and contradictions within ethical consumption, and some avenues for further research are suggested in the conclusion.