Prosumption for sustainable consumption and its implications for sustainable consumption governance

Abstract

Chapter 7, ‘Prosumption for sustainable consumption and its implications for sustainable consumption governance’ by Matthias Lehner discusses the idea of the prosumer, implications of the concept for consumption trends in the future, and how it could be of significance for the discussion on sustainable consumption governance. The author suggests that there are two types of prosumption: the one in which people engage in for pleasure, and the other in which people participate out of economic necessity, and that these two types of prosumption have different implications for sustainable consumption governance. A key aspect of this discussion is time (as opposed to money) as a measure of the possible impact of the maker movement on society. The chapter builds on the idea that a higher level of engagement with an object deriving from prosumption brings significant costs for the prosumer; not in monetary terms but in an equally scarce today resource: time. The author argues that this could lead to a refocusing of consumption from the fast consumption of mass products to extended consumption of high-quality products and that this could be the main contributor to more sustainable consumption. Several research directions are outlined aiming to better understand the actual impact of prosumption on overall consumption levels.