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trends and future of sustainable development - TransEco

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TOWARDS SUSTAINABLE SOCIETY - TRANSFORMINGMATERIALIST CONSUMERISMArto O. Salonen, PhD 1 <strong>and</strong> Mauri Åhlberg, Pr<strong>of</strong>essor 21 Helsinki Metropolia UAS, Faculty <strong>of</strong> Welfare <strong>and</strong> Human Functioning,www.metropolia.fi/en/arto.salonen@gmail.com2 University <strong>of</strong> Helsinki, Faculty <strong>of</strong> Behavioral Scienceswww.helsinki.fi/universitymauri.ahlberg@helsinki.fiABSTRACT The mankind has faced three regimes: hunter-gatherers, agrarian societies <strong>and</strong>industrial societies. A transition towards <strong>sustainable</strong> society will be the next regime. It means afundamental re-orientation <strong>of</strong> society <strong>and</strong> the economy. It is based on knowledge, thinking, value,attitude <strong>and</strong> behavior change. Finnish university students (n = 198) assessed their attitudes <strong>and</strong>achievements in implementation <strong>of</strong> <strong>sustainable</strong> <strong>development</strong> in their daily life. The data were collectedusing a theory-grounded semantic differential technique. A measurement instrument was created bybalancing 33 variables <strong>of</strong> ecological, economic <strong>and</strong> social sustainability. The variables were indicators<strong>of</strong> attitudes <strong>and</strong> behavior. Post-materialistic behavior was operationalized as follows: (a) importance<strong>of</strong> owning is decreased, (b) services are used instead <strong>of</strong> owning goods, <strong>and</strong> (c) renewal <strong>of</strong> goods ismotivated by real needs. Performing <strong>of</strong> logistic regression analysis found that the difference with themost <strong>and</strong> less post-materialistic way behaving groups was statistically significant in the followingattitudes: health-promoting lifestyle, recycling, organic food, water conservation, maintaining <strong>of</strong> civilsociety, favoring the eco-labeled products <strong>and</strong> using renewable energy resources. These themes arediscussed in the paper <strong>and</strong> a model <strong>of</strong> sustainability promoting social change is created.Keywords: Sustainable <strong>development</strong>, consumerism, post-materialism, attitudes, social change1. Introduction <strong>and</strong> BackgroundCulture <strong>of</strong> ‘having’ has been dominating last decades in Finl<strong>and</strong>. It has turned out as consumerism.Perceptions related to means <strong>of</strong> achieving well-being have hardened in 2009–2011. Ecological values areundermined <strong>and</strong> the importance <strong>of</strong> economic growth is argued by citizens to be more essential now thansome years ago (Haavisto & Kiljunen, 2011, 131–133). Consuming based carbon dioxide emissions perperson in Finl<strong>and</strong> are the highest in Sc<strong>and</strong>inavia <strong>and</strong> 9th highest in global level (Caldeira & Davies185

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