Montréal, October 13 - 15 2013
World Social Science Forum
The Global Research Forum on Sustainable Production and Consumption will be conducting a panel at the World Social Science Forum's 2013 conference, to be held October 13 - 15th in Montréal, Canada. The session, entitled "The Transition to Sustainable Production and Consumption in the Digital Age" will be held October 15th 15:00 - 16:45, and will be facilitated by Jeffrey H. Barber (Integrative Strategies Forum, Washington DC, USA). For further information on the panel, including papers submitted, please visit the panel website: http://www.wssf2013.org/panel-comit%C3%A9/transition-sustainable-production-and-consumption-digital-age
For registration and program information, please visit the World Social Science Forum website at: http://www.wssf2013.org
The concept of sustainable production and consumption is a systemic concept, and provides a valuable lens into a complex system of material extraction, transformation, exchange, and waste flows, intertwined with complex economic and cultural dynamics. Unsustainable production and consumption is one of the major driving forces underlying the crisis of unsustainable development, threatening the earth’s ecosystems as well as human well-being and equity within the growing global population. Digital technologies spur increasing consumption and production, but also have the capacity to encourage sustainable lifestyles, livelihoods and values such as sufficiency as well as social movements and innovation.
In this session we will present an overall framework of a transition to sustainable production and consumption, as well as a number of papers addressing various aspects of sustainable production and consumption in the context of a social transformation in the digital age. The papers will focus on how digital technologies and social media influence decision making and choices, the spread of consumption society (in Brazil); the use of data on sufficiency, and how that could help educate students and adults about the linkage between their consumption choices and sustainability, how social media support widespread dissemination of information about sustainable consumption and lifestyles; how they contribute to interventions; and the value base as well as the sociological factors and systemic transformations which may lead to the reduction of extremes of wealth and poverty and intensify collaboration.
For registration and program information, please visit the World Social Science Forum website at: http://www.wssf2013.org
The concept of sustainable production and consumption is a systemic concept, and provides a valuable lens into a complex system of material extraction, transformation, exchange, and waste flows, intertwined with complex economic and cultural dynamics. Unsustainable production and consumption is one of the major driving forces underlying the crisis of unsustainable development, threatening the earth’s ecosystems as well as human well-being and equity within the growing global population. Digital technologies spur increasing consumption and production, but also have the capacity to encourage sustainable lifestyles, livelihoods and values such as sufficiency as well as social movements and innovation.
In this session we will present an overall framework of a transition to sustainable production and consumption, as well as a number of papers addressing various aspects of sustainable production and consumption in the context of a social transformation in the digital age. The papers will focus on how digital technologies and social media influence decision making and choices, the spread of consumption society (in Brazil); the use of data on sufficiency, and how that could help educate students and adults about the linkage between their consumption choices and sustainability, how social media support widespread dissemination of information about sustainable consumption and lifestyles; how they contribute to interventions; and the value base as well as the sociological factors and systemic transformations which may lead to the reduction of extremes of wealth and poverty and intensify collaboration.