Ympäristökansalaisuudesta aineksia ilmastokriisin ratkaisuun?

Reilu ruokamurros : Polkuja kestävään ja oikeudenmukaiseen ruokajärjestelmään

Ruokajärjestelmämme kärsivät monista yhteen kietoutuneista kestävyysongelmista. Ongelmia ei korjata yksittäisillä teknologisilla ratkaisuilla, vaan muutoksia tarvitaan läpi koko ruokajärjestelmän. Muutosten laajuuden vuoksi on syytä puhua järjestelmän perustavanlaatuisesta muuttamisesta eli ruokamurroksesta. Tässä julkaisussa tarkastelemme, miten ruokajärjestelmän ilmastopäästöjä voitaisiin vähentää Suomessa siten, että ruokaturva ei vaarannu. Arvioimme ilmastotoimien toteutusta eri murrospoluilla, jotka keskittyvät maankäytön, ruokavalioiden, maatalous- ja ruokateknologioiden muutoksiin. Arvioimme eri murrospolkujen vaikutuksia maatalouteen eri alueilla ja eri väestöryhmien ravitsemukseen.…

Environmental citizenship in geography and beyond

The need for wider action against environmental problems such as climate change has brought the debate about the role of citizen to the political, practical, and scientific domains. Environmental citizenship provides a useful tool to conceptualize the relation between citizenship and the environment. However, there exists considerable variation in the ways environmental citizenship is understood regarding both the aspect of citizenship and the relationship to the environment. In this article, we review the literature on environmental citizenship and investigate the evolution of the concept. The article is based on a literature search with an emphasis on geographical research. The concept of…

Living standards and changing expectations : investigating domestic necessity and environmental sustainability in an affluent society

This study explores how the problematic relations of rising living standards and environmental sustainability may be better understood by investigating domestic necessity and daily going-on. These key subjects are looked at from two angles and through two kinds of research material: statistics and quantitative survey material constituting of a nationally representative longitudinal dataset of Finnish people (n=2,417 in 1999, n=3,574 in 2004, n=1,202 in 2009), and in-depth interviews (n=14) of a particular socio-economic group, the well-to-do who have higher-than average income and higher education, and those in their prime working age (30–45 years-old). The survey material provides a tempor…

Intra-Acting Food Citizenship in Community-Supported Agriculture in Finland

Citizens are called upon to become active participants in creating a more sustainable food system. As food citizens, people participate in defining and constructing their food systems according to their needs and values. In food policies, the concept of food citizenship is often left undefined or with reference only to individual activities. In the food citizenship literature, the role of nonhuman agency in constituting food citizenship needs more examination. Here we investigate food citizenship activities in a citizen-led community-supported agriculture group and explore the role of materiality in constituting food citizenship. We ask (1) what is the role of material-discursive arrangemen…

Reconfigurations in sustainability transitions : a systematic and critical review

Two streams of literature have become especially prominent in understanding social change toward sustainability within the past decades: the research on socio-technical transitions and applications of social practice theory. The aim of this article is to contribute to efforts to create dialogue between these two approaches. We do this by focusing on the concept of reconfiguration, which has become a much-used, but poorly defined notion in the discussion on sustainability transitions. To understand what is defined as reconfiguration in systems and practices, and how the understanding of reconfiguration in regimes could benefit from insights about reconfiguration in practices, we conducted a …

Editorial

Liikkumisvajeen luontopohjaiset ratkaisut ja ongelmat

[Johdanto] Suomalaiset liikkuvat terveytensä kannalta liian vähän, kun liikkumisella tarkoitetaan ihmisten fyysistä aktiivisuutta. Toisaalta suomalaiset liikkuvat liiankin paljon, kun liikkumisella tarkoitetaan moottorivoimin tapahtuvaa siirtymistä paikasta toiseen. Ongelmana on sekä moottoroitujen liikkumisvälineiden runsaasta käytöstä aiheutuva ihmisten fyysinen passiivisuus että ympäristön suuri kuormitus. Esimerkiksi henkilöautojen osuus päivittäin kuljetuista kilometreistä on 76 %, kun kävellen tai polkupyörällä matkoista taittuu noin 4 % (Liikennevirasto 2018). Tässä kirjoituksessa ymmärrämme liikkumisen ihmisten fyysiseksi aktiivisuudeksi ja tarkastelemme liikkumisvajeen luontopohjai…

Standard of living, consumption norms, and perceived necessities

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to focus on the material conditions of peoples’ daily lives by investigating changes in the self-perceived necessities of ten technology- and leisure-related consumer goods and services between 1999 and 2009. The authors also look at the socio-demographic predictors of the perceptions and the development of the ownership of the goods under investigation.Design/methodology/approach– The data are derived from surveys “Finland – Consumption and way of life” 1999 (N=2,417), 2004 (N=3,574), and 2009 (N=1,202). The statistical analysis methods include ANOVA and descriptive statistics. Also official statistics are used.Findings– Many technological goods, in pa…

Normality against Sustainability - Mobility practices of well-to-do households

By focusing on the daily and leisure mobility of well-to-do people in Finland, this study contributes to the discordant discussion on the sustainability of well-to-do consumers, whose consumption levels are relatively the highest, and concerns whether they are both aware of environmental matters and willing to pay for environmental protection. The interview analysis revealed that, despite general knowledge of environmental issues, sustainability is not relevant to daily practices, and the well-to-do studied here are not to any significant degree engaged in sustainable mobility practices, but in a complex organization of daily life. This study also shows that, while there is a shared underst…

Planetary well-being

Tensions between the well-being of present humans, future humans, and nonhuman nature manifest in social protests and political and academic debates over the future of Earth. The increasing consumption of natural resources no longer increases, let alone equalizes, human well-being, but has led to the current ecological crisis and harms both human and nonhuman well-being. While the crisis has been acknowledged, the existing conceptual frameworks are in some respects ill-equipped to address the crisis in a way that would link the resolving of the crisis with the pivotal aim of promoting equal well-being. The shortcomings of the existing concepts in this respect relate to anthropocentric norma…

Planetary well-being

Tensions between the well-being of present humans, future humans, and nonhuman nature manifest in social protests and political and academic debates over the future of Earth. The increasing consumption of natural resources no longer increases, let alone equalises, human well-being, but has led to the current ecological crisis and harms both human and nonhuman well-being. While the crisis has been acknowledged, the existing conceptual frameworks are in some respects ill-equipped to address the crisis in a way that would link the resolving of the crisis with the pivotal aim of promoting equal well-being. The shortcomings of the existing concepts in this respect relate to anthropocentric norma…