Local governance of sustainable consumption on the household level

Abstract: Today most Swedish municipalities work actively with climate change mitigation with the goal to decrease their total emissions of greenhouse gases. To achieve this, the municipalities must decrease their consumption related emissions. This is a rather new question within local governance, which begs the question, how do municipalities work to govern its citizens’ consumption patterns? This study set out to investigate how the two Swedish municipalities of Malmö and Gothenburg work with governance methods to steer its citizens’ consumption patterns to become more sustainable. Strategies and challenges to this work were also explored. Bulkeley & Kern’s modes of local governance were tested on three established categories of sustainable consumption. This was performed through a qualitative content analysis of documents as well as interviews with civil servants of the two municipalities. The results show that to influence citizens’ consumption patterns the municipalities mainly employ information-based measures to promote sustainable consumption, but also that they provide sustainably produced heating and electricity to households and sustainable transportation infrastructures, such as bicycle roads and public transport. Additionally, the municipalities address strategies to influence consumption norms, for instance among young people in school. A key challenge for the municipalities is a lack of knowledge on effective governance measures for promoting sustainable consumption.