Mission & activities

The Virtual Community (VC) on Sustainability and Consumption is a cross-disciplinary collaboration platform with a “solutions oriented” perspective on the problem complex around sustainability and consumption. Researchers in the VC approach this problem complex primarily from a micro and meso perspective (consumers, households, companies). However, the primary goal is to inform macro perspectives and policies aimed to reduce the tension between sustainability and consumption.

The mission of the VC is to initiate, develop and organise research that will help to reduce the tension between sustainability and consumption in both the near and the long term, to the benefit of consumers, businesses, and the general society.

The key means to realize this mission is to strengthen existing and develop new relationships between key researchers in the field of sustainability and consumption, and between researchers and users of the research in industry and politics.

The operational objectives of the VC are:

• To improve flows of information quantitatively and qualitatively
• To increase collaboration, exchange and idea generation
• To develop joint activities, including research projects, post-graduate courses, special issues of international journals, and dissemination events and activities.

The backbone of this infrastructure is a Sustainability and Consumption website. In terms of activities, the VC will organize opportunities to meet at least on a yearly basis, “piggy bagged” on a relevant international conference or event and/or in the form of a specialized conference for members of the VC, but open for others, including journalists and other stakeholders. Also, the VC will organize a series of “hybrid” virtual/real-life research seminars. “Hybrid” refers to the fact that, in connection with seminars and conferences, the VC will make use of new media and virtuality to extent their reach and the active participation of its member, and to reduce CO₂ emissions from travelling.

It is the hope that the mentioned infrastructure and activities will facilitate collaboration, exchange and idea generation to the extent that active and creative researchers from many fields and institutions will join the VC. The VC will also facilitate staff exchanges (visiting scholarships) and exchange and joint supervision of PhD students between collaborating institutions.

The most ambitious goal of the VC is to develop joint research work that promotes the VC’s mission, such as joint research projects, post-graduate courses, joint publications, and special issues of international journals.

It is paramount that research in the VC is disseminated to the wider society, including the political level, the business sector, and the civil society. The dissemination task will be carried out as an integrated element in the information dissemination between researchers in the VC.