Content: This course addresses both the analysis of consumer behaviour and the assessment of environmental impacts of household consumption. On the conceptual side, students learn how sociology, psychology and marketing research address consumer behaviour. The course addresses attempts to influence consumers to behave in a more environmentally responsible way, illuminating the role of motives, knowledge and skills, habits, and external conditions (including infrastructure), and the use and effectiveness of eco-labels and other information tools. Consumers are addressed as active goal-setting and goal-striving individuals, members of smaller and larger collectives, users of technology, and as processors of information. On the assessment side, the course addresses the use of life-cycle assessment and input-output analysis to model the environmental profile of a household. Household budgets are reviewed and the most environmentally important consumer expenditure items are identified. The results of econometric studies of consumer environmental impacts are reviewed. Options for change commonly proposed to and by the households themselves are reviewed for their potentials in lowering environmental impacts. Potentials in the short and long run are identified.
