Clark University
Worcester, MA, USA
June 12-14, 2013

The Sustainable Consumption Research and Action Initiative (SCORAI) is organizing an international conference to be held on June 12-14, 2013, at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. SCORAI is the North American knowledge network of professionals working to address challenges at the interface of material consumption, human fulfillment, lifestyle satisfaction, and technological change. Scholars working in the field of sustainable consumption are seeking to better understand the connections between material consumption and societal well-being and to chart transition pathways toward a more sustainable future. The aim is to formulate options for post-consumerist lifestyles, social institutions, and economic systems in wealthy countries of the global North. The 2013 Conference at Clark University will follow three previous SCORAI workshops held in North America at Clark (2009), Princeton (2011), and Vancouver (2012) and a Trans-Atlantic workshop Austria (2012).

The formal call for abstracts will be issued on July 1. At that time we will invite proposals for sessions and individual papers based on theoretical and applied research focusing on the above issues. We especially welcome contributions from interdisciplinary research that addresses, but is not limited to, such topics as: subjective and social wellbeing, socio-technical transitions, evolution of social practices in a technological society and their ecological impacts, local innovations in alternative systems of provisions and lifestyles (including grassroots initiatives), new economic and institutional models in the context of ecological limits, and the role and prospects for social movements toward a post-consumerist society (including the emergence of compelling future visions). We also welcome scholarly contributions that address sustainable consumption in the context of political power and institutional structures as well as the role of academic community in affecting a transition to a sustainable future.

Learn more about what we do and connect with the SCORAI community.