Active Consumership as a Driver towards Sustainability?

Abstract

Recently, more and more providers of goods and services have actively involved consumers and users in processes of value creation and innovation. Bottom-up processes of collaborative production of consumer communities have gained public attention. In sustainability research, these phenomena are considered as promising for fostering sustainability in consumption. Active consumer ship, in this sense, may well encourage people to be more creative in finding sustainable solutions for satisfying needs and – even more importantly – help them be more open in embracing the opportunities these solutions can offer. Discussing different kinds of active consumership, the author identifies three new roles for consumers: prosuming, co-innovation and social innovation. She explores their relevance for fostering sustain ability in consumption by means of examples. For instance, prosuming might increase sustainability in consumption if different kinds of motivations are taken into account; co-innovation very often relies on lead users who may help to increase sustainability if they themselves show characteristics of opinion leaders.