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"The cultivation of sustainability" is a call for a more systematic integration of the variable "culture" within the current sustainability discourse. Since consumption styles and patterns are deeply embedded within (sub)cultural frameworks, such an integration is especially relevant for studying sustainable consumption. Three discourses are differentiated: Firstly, the discourse on the epistemological-conceptual integration of culture in the concept of sustainable development; secondly, the question of the contents of a "culture of sustainability" and possible ways towards such a culture; thirdly, the question of the specific contribution of "the arts" in promoting a more sustainable society. Proposing and discussing a "prism"-model of sustainable development, the article focuses on the first discourse. It also touches upon barriers and potentials for a "cultivation of consumption" as a way for sustainable consumption.

Stream: Cultural Sustainability

Paper: Cultivation of Sustainability, The

Lucia A. Reisch is Lecturer at the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart, Department of Consumption Theory and Consumer Policy (lureisch@uni-hohenheim.de) and Research Fellow at the private University of Witten-Herdecke, Germany. She holds a Ph.D in economics and received MBA training at UCLA (U.S.). Her major research interest is empirical consumer behaviour research in the field of ecologically and socially responsible consumer behaviour as well as conceptual work on sustainable consumption issues. As a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for Consumer, Food, and Nutrition Policies to the German Federal Ministry of Consumer Protection, Food and Agriculture, she was in charge of a Strategy Paper which represented the groundwork for the Ministry's new consumer policy strategy. The core of this new strategy is the promotion of sustainable consumption.