Turning EU Consumer Law Against Itself? Taking Stock of the EU's Sustainable Consumption Strategy

The escalating ecological impact of private consumption has generated growing momentum among policymakers to promote sustainable consumption. This article critically assesses the EU’s strategy for sustainable consumption within the broader political economy of the Union. Grounded in the information paradigm, the EU’s primary approach has been to empower ethical individual choice to drive market change, though the recent emergence of by-design regulatory measures signals a positive move towards making sustainable consumption the market default. Yet these measures remain modest in scope and riddled with inconsistencies. At its core, this reflects the enduring neoliberal capture of the EU’s sustainable consumption agenda, which recasts sustainability from a collective public good into a private commodity to shop for. As a result, prospects for a fundamental transformation of consumption in the EU remain remote. The article argues that taking planetary boundaries seriously requires a more radical reorientation of EU consumer law – one that turns it against its own consumerist bias.