Measuring Progress: STATEC Well-being Seminar Series

17:00 CET (11:00 AM Eastern) – 18:00 CET (12:00 PM Eastern)

27 April 2022

Sustainable Consumption and Wellbeing

Dr. Mònica Guillén Royo, CICERO Center for International Climate Research

Abstract: As preventing a 1.5 C of global warming becomes elusive, justifying high levels of consumption in terms of their positive impact on wellbeing is difficult to maintain.  On the one hand, studies show that greater welfare is achieved in societies that cross several environmental thresholds. On the other hand, sustainable consumption practices such as eating vegetarian, cycling to work, repairing, sharing, recycling, or flying less do not seem to have a negative impact on wellbeing.

In this presentation I will draw on findings from research following the economics of happiness tradition and from participatory studies based on human needs perspectives to reflect on the relationship between sustainable consumption and wellbeing. I will address the extent to which materialistic values, pro-environmental activism and low-carbon consumption practices are associated with measures of hedonic and eudemonic wellbeing in poor and rich settings. I will also discuss how needs-enhancing interventions such as working time flexibility or increased democratic participation can foster both wellbeing and environmental sustainability.

Dr. Mònica Guillén Royo is senior researcher at CICERO, International Center for Climate Research in Oslo. Her research focusses on the relationship between wellbeing and sustainable consumption drawing on quantitative and qualitative methods and participatory research designs. Topics include the study of the relationship between consumption practices, materialistic values, social comparison and subjective wellbeing; and the exploration of the values, technologies, behaviors, spaces, institutions and environments that hamper or promote need fulfilment and environmental sustainability. Her 2016 book Sustainability and Wellbeing. Human Scale Development in Practice (Routledge) presents her research on human needs and local transformations towards sustainable societies.

For more information on the seminar series, please check the website here.

The webinar will be held in English via Cisco Webex and recorded.

Registration is mandatory for this event.

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