Sustainable consumption in a consumer society. A study of sustainable consumption policy in Sweden 1992–2022.

Abstract: This thesis explores how the topic of sustainable consumption has been discussed in Swedish policy-making between 1992–2022 by analysing policy documents including government official reports, government bills and government communications. The aim of the thesis is to understand how consumption has been discussed and problematised from a sustainability perspective in Sweden over time. The analysis is conducted through a qualitative policy analysis drawing from Carol Lee Bacchi’s approach ‘What’s the Problem Represented to be?’ to scrutinise how problems of consumption are represented in Swedish policy. The result shows that the sustainability aspect of consumption has moved from focusing exclusively on environmental issues in the 1990’s to include all three dimensions of sustainability (economic, environmental and social) in the 2010’s. There is no unanimous and clear definition of sustainable consumption in the documents. Rather, the definition of the term can best be interpreted through what areas and measures that are discussed, which vary over time. The proposed measures show a varying degree of state involvement in changing consumption patterns, however, there are no coercive measures which leaves it to the individual consumer to choose whether to consume sustainably or not. The main conclusion of this study is that Swedish sustainable consumption policy has been based on the assumption of growth as a prerequisite for welfare, and of consumption as a prerequisite for growth, which has resulted in a maintenance of the growth paradigm and an avoidance of questioning the scale of consumption and the consumer society itself.