Interpreting Sustainability: A Cross‐Cultural Exploration Between New Zealand (Western & Indigenous) and Chinese (Urban) Consumers

ABSTRACT Sustainability is a globally promoted concept, yet its meaning is often shaped by cultural context. Existing research has largely been informed by Western‐centric understandings of sustainability, leaving limited insight into how sustainability is interpreted across diverse cultural settings. This study addresses this gap by examining how members of the general public from different cultural backgrounds understand sustainability. Using the widely adopted environmental, economic, social, and cultural sustainability framework as a discussion prompt, the research compares perspectives from New Zealand Western, New Zealand Indigenous Māori, and urban Chinese participants. Qualitative data were collected through 24 focus groups and analysed thematically to explore culturally situated interpretations of sustainability. The findings reveal both shared concerns for long‐term wellbeing and significant differences in how participants understood human–nature relationships, responsibility, agency, community, and cultural continuity. Interpreted through cultural habitus and cross‐cultural perspectives, these differences reflect distinct ontological and epistemological assumptions through which sustainability becomes meaningful. The study contributes to sustainability scholarship by highlighting the existence of multiple sustainability epistemologies and challenging universalistic assumptions within sustainability discourse. The findings suggest that effective global sustainability governance requires not only shared sustainability goals but also sufficient flexibility to accommodate diverse knowledge systems, cultural narratives, and governance traditions within plural epistemic contexts.