The collection of chapters included in this volume denaturalize dominant conceptualizations of status competition and consumption, drawing attention to alternative possibilities. The authors draw on a number of key themes recurring throughout the volume, including issues of governance and societal demographics to theorize diversity in status pursuits.  Roscoe and Isenhour observe that issues of in/equity loom large and point to a number of political and policy-based implications that might help to bend the curve toward more sustainable futures.

In this chapter I summarize sociological literature on sustainable consumption. This review showcases, in public discourse, the prominence of consumer-focussed solutions and, in academic research, the predominance of relatively individualistic theories of engagement in sustainable consumption practices. Regarding public discourse, I note that despite compelling evidence that environmental issues from climate change to biodiversity loss are shaped by cultural and institutional dynamics like norms, state policy, and urban design, individual consumption choices are subject to much scrutiny in the public sphere. Regarding academic research, I suggest that social practice theories offer a valuable alternative to understand individual motivations in the context of broader social structures. Relatedly, I outline two related problems with mainstream, contemporary sustainable consumption. The material problem is that individual sustainable consumption activities like buying a hybrid car are largely unrelated to individuals’ environmental impact. This is closely tied to the second, symbolic, challenge—like any social practice, sustainable consumption is built upon class, gender, and race inequality. Inattention to these axioms of inequality constitutes a threat to the pursuit of a just sustainability. The chapter concludes with a discussion of future research directions on sustainable consumption, a rich and timely area of environmental sociological scholarship.

The chapter draws on the legal, institutional and stakeholder perspectives to develop a septet framework that provides clarity to the concept of sustainable consumption and production and aligns consumer protection to sustainable development in developing countries. This contextualises the roles of consumers and corporations as institutional actors and consumption as an institution. The chapter uniquely unbundles the concept as consisting of six foundational components: sustainable consumption by proximate consumers for future generations; sustainable production for future generations; sustainable consumption by/for proximate consumers; sustainable production for proximate consumers; participation by proximate consumers; and CSR. The septet framework challenges conventional approaches to consumer vulnerability, disclosure regulation, contract law, consumer responsibilisation, stakeholder, corporate governance, institutional voids and international cooperation. The chapter’s interventionist consumer protection law approach includes public interest-oriented disclosure regulation, distributive justice-oriented contract law, resolution of business-to-consumer information asymmetry, credible corporate social reporting and certification standards, distributed/shared consumer responsibilisation, stakeholder enforcement rights, obligations and protection, independent stakeholder determination of standards, resolution of related agency problems through a stakeholder approach to corporate governance and international cooperation in regulatory standards and enforcement. It is also argued that a consumer protection approach to sustainable development can promote stakeholder engagement and meaningful corporate social responsibility.