This review focuses on how individual consumption behaviours contribute to or detract from broader systemic changes, and how shocks to societal functioning, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, may inspire more fundamental shifts toward sustainable consumption. I endeavour to take a bottom-up approach to sustainable consumption behaviours, identifying different patterns of behaviours discussed in the literature and organizing them into frameworks by i) the way they uphold or disrupt unsustainable consumption practices, through four attributes of alternative ownership structure, method of acquiring or reusing products, consumption volume, and/or need for novelty, ii) the policy responses needed, and iii) the individual, social, contextual, and institutional factors that may influence or inhibit them. The frameworks include ethical and green consumerism (EGC), sharing economy (SE), circular economy (CE), and de-consumption.

It is useful to categorize behaviours in relation to how closely they maintain current consumption standards in order to connect sustainable consumption to other movements toward systemic change and justice. Conflating all types of sustainable consumption divorces the idea from a structural upheaval of consumption, limiting the focus solely to the behaviour of individuals whilst ignoring greater forces of influence. Rather, unsustainable consumption should be treated as one symptom of the larger problem associated with capitalism and relentless growth.

This complete work is available upon request.