Towards a future of sustainable consumption : a practice oriented, participatory backcasting approach for sustainable washing and heating practices in Irish households

Abstract

How to encourage a shift to more sustainable practices of household water and energy consumption and what these practices might involve is at the heart of this thesis. While production processes and resource efficiency have long received attention in environmental policy and research, patterns of consumption by households in industrialised nations are increasingly recognised as central to current environmental, social and economic problems. To date, attempts to encourage sustainable household consumption of key resources such as energy and water have focused mainly on information provision, economic instruments and incremental technology improvements.