Sufficiency as trend or tradition?—Uncovering business pathways to sufficiency through historical advertisements

Abstract

Climate change and dwindling resources underline that we need to bring production and consumption levels in line with planetary boundaries. Consumption, particularly in high-income communities, needs to be reduced and stabilized at sustainable levels. Businesses can play a key role as suppliers of goods and services and creators of demand. Some companies are rising to the challenge and promoting less consumption or “sufficiency” through long product lifetimes, repair services or rental offers, but they remain niche actors in the economic system. Similarly, while circular initiatives gain traction across sectors, firms focus primarily on recycling and efficiency improvements rather than supporting more radical “Reduce” strategies. To engage companies in promoting sustainable levels of consumption, it can be helpful to understand pathways of established businesses who currently promote sufficiency. What can we learn from companies that currently promote sufficiency in their communications? Have they always advocated sufficient consumption, or have they changed recently? Through a historical perspective, we provide insights on the pathway of sufficiency for three companies. A document analysis of historical advertisements shines light on the messaging to potential customers over time. It is combined with an analysis of contemporary communications to connect the companies' past and present sufficiency approaches. Understanding different pathways to sufficiency can help modern-day businesses to reconsider their own business models and orientation. It can also point out levers for policy to support a transformation toward sustainable and circular business models that promote living within planetary boundaries.

Sufficiency in Business

“…While it is reasonable for any company to highlight the qualities of its products, regardless of its business approach, as explained later, these types of posts, although sporadic, do not align well with a sufficiency approach and raise doubts on the authenticity of the company's sustainable fashion marketing (Ritch 2023). Similar types of inconsistencies or contradictory promotion strategies were also found in the study of Niessen et al (2023) when examining the historical print advertisements of fashion brand Levi's.…”

“…For example, strategies involving the provision of durable or second-hand products that satisfy basic needs could give economically disadvantaged individuals permanent access to essential products. However, other sufficiency strategies, such as premium pricing, pose the risk of limiting access to sufficiency-oriented offerings to affluent individuals Niessen et al 2023b). Meriting further investigation is also how businesses can systematically support individuals to move from a state of deprivation of certain basic needs to their adequate supply while respecting planetary boundaries.…”

“…This could be realized by conducting interviews with social media management teams or by assessing other marketing channels . Additionally, extending the temporal scope of research (Niessen et al 2023) can enable the analysis of how these strategies evolve over time, providing insights into historical and potential trends and the future trajectory of this field.…”

“…The sufficiency movement challenges the dominant consumer culture based on materialistic values and encourages the reconsideration of existing consumption levels and patterns to realize more responsible and sustainable consumption while pursuing well-being (Niessen et al 2023;. This entails a focus on essential and relevant needs while discarding artificial needs, eliminating the superfluous or dispensable.…”

“…For businesses operating within the current growth-oriented economic system, sufficiency seems to represent a comprehensive and far-reaching concept that necessitates a fundamental shift in traditional business logic (Jungell-Michelsson/Heikkurinen 2022). While existing publications on corporate sufficiency have discussed the concept mainly with regard to specific sufficiency-oriented business models (e.g., Bocken/Short 2016), business strategies (e.g., Freudenreich/ Schaltegger 2020) and corporate marketing (e.g., , the need to incorporate sufficiency as a holistic principle throughout the business has been emphasized for effective implementation Niessen et al 2023b). Recent studies have begun to take initial steps towards a more comprehensive approach by empirically examining the constituent elements of general sufficiency-oriented business practices (Beyeler/ Jaeger-Erben 2022) and of entire businesses driving a sufficiency-based circular economy .…”