Is sustainable already "normal"? Sustainability as a consumption compass and self-moralisation in dealing with consumer goods

This article addresses the question of the extent to which sustainability is already "normal", i.e. has become established in everyday patterns of behaviour and consumption. With a quantitative survey, changes in the handling of (consumer) goods in Austria between 2015 and 2019 were surveyed. The results were complemented and reflected upon by narrative interviews, which used an innovative storytelling concept to investigate sustainability narratives and dissonances in relation to sustainability as a normative framework for individual action. The central results of the study show that sustainability as a moral compass has arrived in the consciousness of consumers in Austria, especially when it comes to the useful life of products, especially smartphones. However, concrete changes in action are influenced less by a "moralisation" with sustainability as a "consumption compass", but rather by positive experiences of the peer group, role models in the family or corresponding communicative negotiation processes in the sense of a self-moralisation in the personal close world.