Completing the picture: The challenges of bringing "consumption" into the population-environment equation

Abstract

The issue of environmentally significant consumption is closely linked to population-environment relationships, but with some exceptions the two literatures have proceeded along separate tracks. We explore three consumption-environment research agendas: household-level consumption; ecological footprints and material flow accounting; and values, attitudes, behaviors and lifestyles. In each of these we note areas of overlap with the population-environment literature, and ways in which the population-environment literature might benefit or borrow from conceptual or methodological approaches in the consumption-environment literature. We also propose ways in which consumption research might be integrated into the largest (in terms of funding) of the population-environment research agendas, land-use and land-cover change research. In the concluding section we present a conceptual framework for understanding the population-environment literature that incorporates production and consumption into the model, and we propose some population-consumption-environment (PCE) research areas to which the population-environment research community could make significant contributions. © 2004 Human Sciences Press, Inc.