Inconspicuous consumption: the sociology of consumption and the environment

Over the past 15 years or so the sociology of consumption has made real progress in identifying and dissecting a series of mechanisms which maintain and expand demand for goods and services. However, few sociologists of consumption have taken account of the environmental impact of practices they describe. In addressing the question 'why do people consume as they do and what are the environmental consequences of escalating demand?', we begin by reviewing the characteristics and environmental implications of five mechanisms of consumption isolated by analysts of consumer culture. We then consider how satisfactorily these mechanisms account for behaviour in some key areas of environmentally significant consumption, focusing especially on those associated with increasing demand for energy,

water and other natural resources. This suggests, amongst other things, that the sociology of consumption is not especially well equipped to deal with environmentally critical forms of 'inconspicuous' consumption nor with equally crucial developments in domestic infrastructures supporting the creeping evolution of normal standards of daily material life. Closer interaction between the sociology of consumption and the sociology of science and technology might narrow the gap between understandings of escalating consumption framed in terms of the visible and glamorous ingredients of consumer culture and those which focus on more mundane and largely invisible - but environmentally central - features of daily life.

This paper asks two questions; in what ways can the sociology of consumption inform the analysis of environmental problems?; and what can environmental issues tell us about sociological understandings of consumption? This allows us both to examine some applications of the sociology of consumption to an area of contemporary political concern and to examine some of the characteristics and lacunae in the sociology of consumption. It is generally agreed by most concerned with environmental problems that the absolute levels of consumption in the western world are unsustainable. If one defining feature of globalisation is the universal spread of consumer culture, as suggested by Sklair (1991), then the environmental consequences of the new international division of labour are likely to be dire. The threat of the exhaustion of natural resources has been a theme in the general critique of consumer societies for about three decades (see Packard, 19XX; Schudson, 1984). Extrapolation of levels of consumption typical of the west to populations of non-western societies paint scenarios of vast environmental damage caused by exponential expansion of transportation by car, energy use and waste disposal (eg Redclift, 1996). However, with a few exceptions, scholars working within in the sociology of consumption have not paid the issue much detailed or empirical attention. In this paper we argue that the existing analytic apparatus of the sociology of consumption is able to throw some light on the social processes which increase rates of consumption, but because of its current primary focus on the ways in which consumption acts as a means of communication between individuals, it omits from its consideration many environmentally sensitive practices. For their part, environmentalists concerned with consumer behaviour have mostly looked to individuals to reform their habits by adopting practices consistent with green values. In this paper we try to identify gaps in the sociology of consumption which, when filled, might suggest more plausible policies with some impact on absolute levels of consumption.

The paper begins by reviewing briefly the development of the sociology of consumption. It then isolates a number of explanatory mechanisms purporting to explain how much and what kinds items are likely to be consumed. We then inquire how well these mechanisms account for a selection of key areas of environmentally significant consumption, focusing especially on those associated with increasing demand for energy and other natural resources. Their inability to offer anything resembling a comprehensive account leads us to speculate about why this is so and what kind of explanation and concepts would need to be added in order to understand such environmentally sensitive consumption practices. In the final part of the paper we reflect on these insights and their implications both for the sociology of consumption and for environmental research and policy.

The sociology of consumption has no history. Or, at least, the intellectual authorities of the past to whom contemporary scholars refer certainly did not think of themselves as contributing to a sociology of consumption. Hence, despite its current prominence, there is no unified line of intellectual development to which to appeal. In the traditions of sociological theory the topic of consumption was addressed in several ways, though usually as an aside. It was examined, mostly empirically, in the context of social deprivation, through the study of poverty, its social consequences and the policies required to alleviate distress. It was confronted as part of the study of social stratification, Weber's analysis of status groups and Veblen's of conspicuous consumption are concerned with processes of social classification and the demonstration of prestige. Simmel explored fashion and taste as aspects of the anatomy of modernity. The Frankfurt School made the other main contribution through its

concerns with the spread of mass culture and the impact of commodification on cultural standards, social relations and the individual psyche. Consumption remained a minor theme of sociological investigation for thirty years after the Second World War, occasionally considered in the context of 'the affluent society', sometimes in terms of the manipulative capacities of mass media and advertising and, most notably by Packard, in terms of waste.

Probably three landmark intellectual developments led to the explosion of interest in recent years. First was the rediscovery of the role of consumption practices in the process of social differentiation and its refinement in sociological thought, with Bourdieu's (1984) analysis of distinction generating a wealth of critique and further empirical investigation into the relationship between social position and lifestyle. Second was exploration around the concept of collective consumption, associated particularly with Castells (1977 [1972]), which drew attention to the need to understand the role of the state, and its relation to capital, in the process of physical, material and social reproduction. The subsequent privatisation programmes of western governments have required these matters to be explored ever more urgently, though often in different directions. Third was the emergence of cultural studies and of innovative multi-disciplinary approaches to analysing the use and meanings of goods and artefacts in everyday life. Involving historical, ethnographic, literary and semiotic analysis, cultural studies enhanced understanding of the experiential, aesthetic and emotional - rather than the utilitarian - aspects of consumption. From these three sources has emerged a vast, complex (and often confused and contradictory) sociological literature on consumption, the largest part of which is focused on the third theme, the operation of consumer culture and its relationship to postmodernism (for sound surveys see Lury, 1996; Slater 1997).

The concepts of 'consumer culture' and 'consumer society' are central to unlocking some of the mysteries of contemporary societies. If we now inhabit a social world where consumption has replaced work as people's central life interest (Moorhouse, 1983; Offe, 1985) then we might expect sustained and comprehensive analysis of the origins and consequences of such a transformation. The entrenchment of a 'work and spend' orientation (Cross, 1993), the ubiquity of 'the consumer attitude' (Bauman, 1990), the emergence of 'lifestyle' as a project (Featherstone, 1991), the intensification of promotional culture (Wernick, 1991), and the pervasiveness in the west of 'the culture of contentment' (Galbraith, 1993) all offer description and diagnosis of current circumstances wherein consumption plays a major, defining role. All suggest different mechanisms which drive or motivate people to maintain or increase their levels of consumption.

Miller (1995:67) observes that 'Much, though not all, of the consumer behaviour work on consumer materialism and consumer culture has adopted a critical perspective'. Indeed, for at least 200 years there has been widespread ambivalence about consumption since it is associated with notions of luxury, excess, hedonism and other attributes antithetical to more legitimate ascetic protestant virtues. Modern consumer culture has been admonished for many reasons, because, for instance: large sections of the population of the world are excluded; material prosperity fails to bring happiness; the sacrifices entailed for producers are unacceptable; materialism compromises spiritual values; mass culture is vulgar. But little of the critical opprobrium has been directed towards its negative environmental consequences. With a few exceptions (e.g. Gabriel & Lang, 1995), sociologists of consumption have made almost no reference to the environmental impact of rapidly expanding levels of consumption.

Hence, we examine some of the ways in which mechanisms driving consumer demand have direct and indirect environmental consequences. In particular, we wanted to investigate the dual role of such mechanisms, first in determining what consumers choose, and second, in prompting ever escalating demand for goods and services. It seemed appropriate, in other words, to ask why people consume as they do and as much as they do, especially when this is known to put unsustainable strains on the environment.

Prima facie this question might be answered by re-examining mechanisms already isolated by analysts of consumer culture in their explanations of how demand for consumer goods is sustained and accelerated. Developing this approach, the next section reviews the characteristics and environmental implications of five such mechanisms.

A good deal of ink has been spilt discussing the process of emulation whereby lower classes seek to imitate the practices of their superiors, implying that there will be no cessation of demand for particular goods until the lower class has the same possessions as the higher. Once it is acknowledged that in such a system the higher class will constantly be seeking new items to mark its social status, then perpetual demand for new products appears inevitable (see Hirsch, 1978, on positional goods). Fresh desires replace previous ones, novel items replace established ones. This is not a cycle of replacing that which is worn out, but one of inevitable obsolescence, driven by a mechanism of invidious social comparison. This traditional sociological explanation of consumer behaviour has been criticised extensively, for its weak specification, because there is evidence of 'trickle-up' as well as down, and because of the now contested presupposition that consumers share the same hierarchical evaluation of possessions and activities (see Fine & Leopold, 1993 and McCracken, 1988 for more sustained critique of this position). The other most widely canvassed explanation of these processes in the sociological heritage is probably the power and influence of capital, with its adjutant advertising and marketing agencies, which bewitch the general public by creating those false needs which the producer is, lo and behold, equipped to supply. This position has also been challenged for being one-sided, monological and capable of recognising neither the active discriminatory capacities of consumers, nor the complexity of the processes involved in the reproduction of consumer society.

Arguably, the major progress in the sociology of consumption in the past 15 years has arisen from identifying and dissecting a series of mechanisms, other than producers' search for profit and social processes of status competition, which maintain and expand demand for goods and services.

The emergent secondary literature seeking to synthesise speculation and research on the consumer culture offers a number of ways of classifying these mechanisms in operation. One of the most transparent is by Gabriel and Lang (1995) who list and discuss the ways that social scientists and (to a lesser degree) activists in the field of consumer advocacy, have conceived of the consumer. 'The Consumer' is introduced in nine different guises, as Chooser, Communicator, Explorer, Identity-seeker, 'Hedonist or Artist?', Victim, Rebel, Activist and Citizen. The writings and arguments of key contributors to a social theory of consumerism are addressed. Each is presented as placing particular emphasis on one or other model or feature of the process of doing consumption. So, the ideas of Simmel, Veblen, Douglas, McCracken and Baudrillard are made to stand for the understanding of the consumer as communicator, while the work of Erikson, Giddens, Bauman, Featherstone and Lasch, along with social psychological investigations of shopping and the meaning of objects provides the basis for a presentation of the consumer as identity-seeker. This catalogue is oriented around the question of why people select given items. Sometimes, of course, the basis of this selection also has implications for the rate of consumption, and the escalation of demand over time.

We have chosen to categorise the literature in terms of this second question, focusing more on the dynamics of escalation than on the specific processes of selecting one rather than another commodity. Our classification is not intended to be definitive or comprehensive, but we think there is some merit in grouping sociological accounts of how people are induced to consume in the escalating quantities that characterise western societies in terms of five mechanisms: (a more sophisticated account of) social comparison; the creation of self-identity; mental stimulation and novelty; aesthetic matching; and specialisation within daily life.

As a thought experiment we isolated a number of fields of domestic consumption and imagined how the five mechanisms might be applied to explain behaviour. We considered: overall levels of energy and water consumption; the purchase and use of domestic appliances, in the kitchen and the rest of the home; and for comparative purposes considered possessions more generally including automobiles and clothing. We selected these items somewhat arbitrarily, though we were conscious of accumulated evidence about domestic energy consumption. Many of the items depend on energy consumption: fridges, fan heaters, fluorescent lights etc. In other words, it is the outputs and services which energy makes possible that should be the focus of attention, not the consumption of energy itself. Although levels of domestic energy consumption vary widely in Western societies (Lutzenhiser, 1993) the distribution of end-uses appears to follow a fairly consistent pattern: space heating or cooling generally accounts for the largest proportion, followed by fridges and freezers, lighting (which is very rarely monitored), and other appliances such as washing machines, cookers, dishwashers, televisions (Lebot et al, 1997).

We wondered to what extent these items and the practices associated with them could be explained in terms of social comparison, self-identity, matching, etc.. A brief resume of our unsystematic reflections is presented in Figure 1. Many of these 'judgments' can be challenged in detail, but a number of points emerge to sustain some general conjectures. Inspection of the figure allows us to identify a number of facets of these particular practices with a bearing on sustainable consumption. Other consequences of specialisation and issues of use, innovation, provision and conservation become apparent, suggesting alternative perspectives on consumption practice.

To summarise, the forms of consumption for which these mechanisms make most sense share a number of characteristics. First, they tend to revolve around seemingly individual

choice and selection. It is in this context that we might locate the green consumer, one who seeks out the most environmentally friendly alternatives on offer or who looks for less harmful ways of meeting their own private needs. Second, the mechanisms are especially relevant when it comes to the analysis of objects (especially visible objects or processes) or even events which are relatively discrete and which can be reviewed and considered as items or experiences in their own right. Third, they are primarily relevant to those aspects which are part of a process of social communication, of indicating to others something about one's social standing or personal identity.

Applying these mechanisms, we can consider the demands and dynamics which favour the consumption and production of goods and services in terms of their longevity and whether they are resource and energy intensive. Moreover, we can begin to identify and explore tendencies and counter tendencies in the ratcheting up, and sometimes the down, of consumption levels.

However, the figure suggests that these ready-made mechanisms do not capture some of the most important features of environmentally significant consumption. They do not fit areas of inconspicuous consumption, like the utilities, very well, and they are not especially helpful in terms of understanding the use of appliances, the role of lighting and central heating, or creeping standards of cleanliness. So what is missing?

One clue is that many of the "no" and "maybe" responses relate to issues which are boringly normal, invisible and enmeshed in a network of related practices and habits. Despite these qualities, such features change, often rapidly, with instant and wide ranging environmental consequences. What is needed is a way of analysing the origins of change in mundane routines. The matrix identifies some missing ingredients, or at least ingredients which are only weakly represented, in the sociology of consumption.

The first is the need to take greater account of infrastructure both in relation to urban planning and the role of utilities in the development of power lines, water mains etc., and in terms of the design and organisation of key arenas like kitchens and bathrooms. In other words we need to know more about the processes and decisions, often commercial, which frame the options and possibilities within which people in turn make choices. The distribution of railway networks, petrol stations, and roads make different forms of transport more and less possible, just as the histories of past choices structure current possibilities within a household. What if there is no shower, or if the heating system runs on oil or if the toilet consumes 7 or 11 or 15 gallons of water with every flush? In these circumstances changing patterns of energy or water consumption are likely to involve altering an established infrastructure of taken for granted hardware. Tampering with taps, shower heads, boilers, etc. is rarely seen as a discrete process of "consumption", for these elements are component parts of that complicated interlocking system which people generally think of as their house.

Such notions are far from entirely absent from the sociological literature which has shown some concern for the social consequences of socio-technical systems. The differentiation of socio-technical systems, to which people become attached and which themselves tend to expect, and even compel, individuals to consume in particular ways has been noticed. For example, Schwartz Cowan (1983) has demonstrated very effectively how the development of infra-structural systems has the effect of locking households, and particularly women into certain ways of reproducing themselves on a daily basis. She considers eight technological systems, namely the systems that supply us with food, clothing, health care, transportation, water, gas, electricity and petroleum products (1983:71), which have, through becoming industrialised, played a part in altering the nature of domestic labour in American households. Her principal focus was to explain why it was still the case that women legitimately claimed that their work was never done despite technological innovation which should have reduced the burden of housework. However, in passing she did have much to say about the use of products and their technological infra-structures, among which was the fact that new technical systems altered expected levels of performance (as when washing machines raise expectations about how often clothes should be cleaned). These technological systems usually require consumption in their own right, but also encourage the further acquisition and use of associated products. So households consume water and electricity, but only when both are available are they likely to own washing machines, dishwashers and showers. What is

interesting is that although these technological systems structure patterns of daily life and related consumption practices, and although they represent major items of consumption in their own right, recent sociologists of consumption have paid them relatively little attention.

Second, it is important to come to terms with the bunching together of expectations and choices. What is missing is a way of capturing the gradual and collective development of a sense of comfort and well-being, or of tracking shifting standards of cleanliness. We need to understand the evolution of the broad, ordinary sense of what is and is not normal. This is likely to require investigation of the rippling of unintended consequences, the spread of central heating, for example, leading to the decline of hot water bottles and bed socks, whilst also making possible new forms and styles of indoor clothing (Wilhite and Lutzenhiser 1997). While mechanisms like novelty and specialisation give us some purchase on these processes, their cumulative effect remains elusive.

Attention to the development of normal standards directs attention to another distinct mechanism which ratchets up consumption. Some of the ordinary examples considered in the matrix suggest the need for a complementary, but more defensive view of consumption, one focusing less on confidence and overt display and more on 'just-in-case' scenarios. The freezer, for instance, needs to be this big just in case all the family show up at Christmas. Similarly, the spare bedroom is needed for those rare occasions when someone comes to stay. Turned the other way around, the need to cope with all social eventualities might be seen as a variant of conspicuous consumption: those who drive enormous cars imply that they need a vehicle this big because any day now they might have to take all their friends and all their luggage to somewhere important - even if that day is not today. As a protective strategy, over-sizing has to be understood in terms of the management of social risk, the cost of failure and the sheer fear of being unable to cope. Developing this idea, Wilhite and Lutzenhiser (1997) suggest that in catering for the extreme, consumers re-define what is normal: expectations of peak load become ordinary and bit by bit new peaks appear.

Third, the history of energy consumption highlights the way in which activities have been re-defined and managed, also showing how consumers trade between time and resources (whether those be natural resources, or the resources of other people's time), as they develop alternative ways of coping with different aspects of everyday life (Schipper, 1989). The notion of convenience is, for instance, critical. The flip of a switch takes the place of time and effort once spent on chopping logs and clearing out the ashes. And that flip also switches the location and management of energy production and consumption. More than that, it alters the balance of time available for other forms of consumption. Thinking along these lines generates some big questions about the relationship between resource intensity and the management of time. Whose effort and resources are re-distributed in the cause of convenience and what is the net environmental effect?

This list of only weakly articulated aspects of environmental impacts of consumption revolves around three core issues: infrastructure, interdependence, and the creeping evolution of normal standards. Perhaps these missing themes need reconceptualising. We are, after all, talking about invisible practices and shifts in socio-technical networks which are simply not, or at least not simply, the subject of social comparison. This is the realm of inconspicuous consumption, a realm ignored by studies of consumer culture which are enthralled by the significance of immediate visual clues in the communication of social meanings.

We have suggested that while the sociology of consumption has developed in promising ways in the last decade, most of the progress has been with respect to the analysis of consumer culture in its aesthetic dimensions (i.e. issues of style and taste). One such line of progress has been an improved and more precise understanding of some of the social mechanisms which lie behind decisions about what to consume and which also impel people to consume ever increasing quantities of goods and services. We have also learned to appreciate the complexity and environmental significance of the use to which goods and services are put. Consumption comprises a set of practices which permit people to express self-identity, mark attachment to social groups, accumulate resources, exhibit social distinction, ensure participation in social activities, and more besides. However, these processes bear primarily

on the way that individuals select among the vast array of alternative items made available in the form of commodities and their symbolic communicative potential.

Examination of the consumption of what used to be described in British industrial statistics as 'the utilities' reveals a type of commodity which dances scarcely at all to the tunes of consumer culture. Only at best obliquely and indirectly does the purchase or use of water, coal, gas or electricity confer self-identity, mark attachment to social groups or exhibit social distinction. Yet a sizeable proportion of household income is devoted to these items and together they contribute to the most pressing of the world's environmental problems.

The analysis presented here leads to the conclusion that the most environmentally problematic aspects of consumption are largely beyond the remit of current sociological approaches. Cisterns, freezers, fans and cavity walls do not feature prominently on the research agenda. Taking these particular spheres of consumption seriously shifts attention away from an intellectual obsession with the glamorous aspects of consumption towards its more routine, pragmatic, practical, symbolically neutral, socially determined, collectively imposed, jointly experienced, non-individualised elements.

Consideration of mechanisms isolated in the analysis of consumer culture may generate some important conclusions with respect to sustainability. Yet reflection on the characteristics of energy and water consumption implies that new and different approaches are also required, perhaps linking the sociology of consumption to the sociology of science and technology. A distinction is suggested between a world of relatively individualised consumer behaviour involving the selection of discrete and visible commodities and a muddier world of embedded, inter-dependent practices and habits explicable in terms of background notions such as comfort, convenience, security and normality (a reason for scepticism regarding Miller's (1995: 34-38) faith in the heroism of the housewife).

Such a distinction might improve the understanding of environmentally significant consumption and provide a platform for an assessment of possibilities and strategies for promoting sustainability, making better use of resources, and racking down levels of demand. In some cases, for example, those which are comprehensible in terms of the five mechanisms, it is possible that environmentally friendly actions and practices, including the restriction of consumption, might acquire their own symbolic significance. High status frugality is a real possibility, as is the valuing of durability and even repair and maintenance. On the face of it there is no reason why some of these mechanisms should not promote green consumption whilst also slowing the escalation of social and physical obsolescence.

But for forms of consumption which are more deeply embedded in infrastructures and socio-technical systems, the achievement of energy and resource efficiency is likely to have rather more to do with the way in which collective services are managed and handled, and with systemic shifts in routine habits and practices. Far from being visible or deliberately selected, these developments are largely unseen by those they most affect and by those whose environmental "choices" they so strongly influence. Which is not to say that there are no alternatives, only that they lie outside the rather narrow realm of individualised green consumerism. One way forward might be to scour the conceptual remnants of earlier analyses of collective consumption. Another could be to apply the concept of systems of provision (Fine & Leopold, 1993) to the utilities and to domestic machines. Whichever, there is a profound disjuncture between our means of understanding, on the one hand, the escalating consumption of the glamorous items of an aestheticised consumer culture and, on the other, the many inconspicuous products and services associated with daily living.

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