Hållbar Konsumtion

The modern western politics of environment and climate change presents the critical analysist with a number of intresting contradictions between economic, social and ecological agendas. In this study the Swedish government’s policy for sustainable consumption has been analyzed through the lens of governmentality and critical environmental theory. The study has found that consumption is primarily understood as an individual phenomenon, rendering consumption and its negative impact on the environment as an individual problem. The objective of the state therefore becomes to govern individual behaviour towards a more sustainable consumption by conducting individuals to conduct themselves. By examining this governmentality through a critical environmental perspective the study shows how the focus on consumption as an individual phenomenon obscures the understanding of consumption as a structural problem. The author proposes that a critical environmental perspective is urgently needed in environmental politics to shift this understanding of consumption. The Swedish government’s policy is informed by the development goals in agenda 2030 and therfore this critique can be applied in not just a Swedish but also a global context