This essay explores sustainable consumption and considers possible roles for marketing and consumer researchers and public policy makers in addressing the many sustainability challenges that pervade the planet. Future research approaches to this interdisciplinary topic must be comprehensive and systematic and would benefit from a variety of different perspectives. There are several opportunities for further research; the authors explore three areas in detail. First, they consider the inconsistency between the attitudes and behaviors of consumers with respect to sustainability. Second, they broaden the agenda to explore the role of individual citizens in society. Third, they propose a macroinstitutional approach to fostering sustainability. For each of these separate, but interrelated, opportunities, the authors examine the area in detail and consider possible research avenues and public policy initiatives.

This research examines the underexplored practice of online swapping. We propose Social Practice Theory as a theoretical lens to study this emerging practice in the sharing economy. Drawing on interviews with participants and observation of online swapping websites, we provide insight into the emergence, upkeep, and development of the practice. Our findings suggest that to enable the practice of online swapping, sharing economy managers should focus on enhancing the material element (their website) to enable more gratifying transactions (meaning) that are easy to perform (skills), and flexible enough for users to co-create shared norms (rules).

Purpose: Time banking is a form of alternative consumer market where members trade services, non-reciprocally creating a local marketplace for services. Time Banks facilitate dyadic exchanges, meeting members’ practical needs and building diverse skills. The purpose of this research was to determine the broad capabilities developed in the Time Bank economy, and to demonstrate how these capabilities were mobilised following a series of earthquakes, contributing to the larger community’s resiliency.Design/methodology/approach: Taking an ethnographic approach, data were collected using a variety of methods including interviews, focus groups, participant observation and secondary research.Findings: Over time, this alternative consumer market developed a significant communication and social network that members activated to solve diverse practical problems facing the community. Similar to other exchange communities, the Time Bank also fostered a strong sense of community based on reciprocity and egalitarian values. Although the Time Bank was created as a marketplace to exchange local services, during a series of devastating earthquakes, it galvanised adaptive capacities, increasing the resiliency of the local community during disaster relief and reconstruction.Research limitations/implications: The data were drawn from one alternative exchange system in New Zealand.Practical implications: The study shows how grassroots alternative consumer markets like Time Banks build community capacities alongside the formal economy. During normal times, this system meets consumer needs, but in extraordinary times, this system provides community shock absorbers, thereby enhancing community resiliency.Social implications: The Time Bank was particularly adept at leveraging local knowledge to provide social support to those residents who were most vulnerable.Originality/value: Data were collected before, during, and after the earthquakes, providing a rare opportunity to explore the process of community resiliency in action. This research extends existing theories of community resiliency explaining the development and activation of capacities by a local alternative consumer market.