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Marie Curatolo March 2011University of Washington | Program on the Environment Succession Planning PieceSuccession Planning Piece: Individual Research on Consumption for West Coast Climateand Materials Management Consumption Workgroup ClearinghouseThe purpose of this document is to provide a methodological approach to takingon the challenging, yet rewarding, task of independent consumption research for theConsumption Workgroup of the West Coast Climate and Materials Management Forum.It is the hope of this paper’s author that this approach provides an organized framework for effectively creating a quality deliverable.

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What sets this experience apart from other internships is the proximity in whichyou work with broad concepts and definitions. From the very beginning, you arechallenged to think about what materials management and consumption mean. Accordingto a foundational paper by the EPA, “Materials management is a term that describes howmaterials are managed as they flow through the economyfrom resource extraction toproduct design and manufacture, transport, use, reuse, recycling, and end of life” (EPAFoundation Paper 2009). From this definition alone, it is not only apparent that thisproject will be extensive in scope and depth, but it also becomes clear that theimplications of work in this field are far-reaching and have the potential to be profound.This purpose of this project is to collect, analyze, organize, and make available aclearninghouse of the best available information on consumption.The Consumption Workgroup exists within the West Coast Climate and MaterialsManagement Forum. This workgroup will be the recipient of your final deliverable, sobefore you begin your research, it is valuable to get to know the workgroup and identifywho they are and what they hope to accomplish and how your project could fit into their vision. Ways to do this include referring to Consumption Workgroup Work Plan, RetreatNotes, and Scoping Paper (all available on the forum website to which you will begranted access) and utilize in-person communications with workgroup leads. Workgroupobjectives listed in the scoping paper that seem to be most related to this project’sresearch are to: 1. Develop a white paper (policy prescriptive document) that describesthe issue and [the workgroup’s] tasks, and 2. To create a system to get educated andliterate on the topic of consumption. There follows a list of long term objectives (2-5years) (Scoping paper 2010). These objectives can help you identify the nature of theworkgroup’s work and the direction they want to go in the future. To evaluate theinformation currently available to workgroup members, you may consult existinginformation in the mediography. It may be valuable to take note of which subcategorieshave the most information, which sources/types of information (ex. Journal article,website, etc.) are frequently used, any recurring “themes” or directions exemplified bythe research selected for the mediography, as well as the overall formatting of the entries.

Information about source types and current prioritization criteria can be found on the tabsat the bottom of the sheet. It may also be valuable to examine the column headings tobecome aware of what information you will be expected to extract from your sources.Keep in mind that while the sources have been thoroughly analyzed before their additionto the mediography and they may be good examples in terms of quality sources,emulating the content of the sources may lead to redundancy.Development of criteria for inclusion in and prioritization within the mediography isone of the most challenging parts of this project. Use information identified fromworkgroup plans to deduce what is most useful, what is most needed, and what will bethe most helpful for future plans. A good amount of time can be saved by consultingworkgroup leads and other employees to ask for help in developing criteria, since theyhave a strong working familiarity with the actions of the workgroup. Consider anumerical ranking system similar to the one presented in the current mediography.Within the difficult duty of developing criteria comes the question of identifying scope:Is global or national information relevant to this project or is information specific to state,county, and city governments preferred? Consumption is relevant on any number of different “levels”. It is a global phenomenon whose effects are as threatening as they arefar-reaching. As one author states, “Overpopulation is not driving environmentaldestruction at the global level; overconsumption is” (Pearce 2010). This is a chilling andoverwhelming thought, given the scope of this project. Consumption is also addressed onthe national and international level and can affect international relations, politics, andeconomies, such as was the case with the U.S. embargo on trade imports of tuna caughtusing fishing methods that were unsafe to dolphins in the Eastern Tropical Pacific (Black 1992). Consumption can be examined at a smaller scale, such as that of a state, asillustrated by study devoted to the proscription of plastic grocery bags throughout theAustralian state of South Australia (Sharp et al. 2002). Furthermore, consumption caneven be based on the psychological and neurological processed that occur on anindividual scale whenever a person makes a behavioral choice related to consumption:Activation of reward circuitry in the brain and priming stimuli, such as informationpresented at the entrance of a store, have a demonstrated effect on consumer behavior (Lin et al. 2010, Mast and Zaltman 2005). Clearly, the scope of the issue is broad andgiven the timeframe of this project, it would be greatly beneficial to those involved toeither decide to focus on one level, or to divide the various levels amongst groupmembers perhaps based on which mediography subcategories will be the focus of eachmember. Addressing scope may help satisfy the specific needs of the workgroup byfocusing on only the levels that are of the greatest use to them. This will also streamlinethe research process.When consultation of the literature begins, it is important to refer back to thebackground information gathered when learning about the workgroup and its directionand during the criteria development process. Research within the literature will be themost time-consuming part of this project. Begin by doing as many searches as possible inmultiple databases. Consult the mediography for ideas on where to begin and what sourcetypes to look for. While some popular sources are listed, journal articles tend to holdmore credibility. Spend a great deal of time reading and keep track of trends in the

literature, recurring concepts, and information that is particularly interesting or criteria-specific. Throughout your research, think about identifying “gaps” in the mediography.As you gain a more thorough knowledge of the most up-to-date consumptioninformation, it may be useful to consider how this information will fit into themediography. For example, consider how subcategories might be added, altered, or removed. It is part of your directive to make sure the mediography format is such that itadequately displays the best research you find.

The final, yet substantial, task is preparing sources and adding them to theaccessible and user-friendly mediography. Source summaries are best done after readingan article in its entirety: You will not need to summarize everything you read, but keeptrack of those that, according to the criteria, are good candidates for inclusion in themediography. These will be the sources you summarize and add. While summarizing, besure to pay attention to information presented as facts versus author-made claims. In yoursummaries, specify if and when it is the author who is making a value judgment. As youidentify the most salient sources, try to apply the conclusions from the individual studiesin a more specific way that may be useful for the workgroup. Make suggestions orrecommendations that could be backed by the source and consider including links tosimilar ideas, programs, or initiatives. These extracted ideas may be used as inspirationfor the future actions of the workgroup.

The methodology presented by this planning piece purports to address one of thelargest conclusions drawn from previous experience with this project: Consumption itself is a broad topic with multiple dimensions spanning nearly every discipline. To addressthis adequately would require a much more extensive study. Consumption isparadoxically saturated with information and data while still lacking direction, definition,and clear goals at this time. With this in mind, the objective for this paper has been toprovide a methodology for undertaking a daunting and seemingly overwhelming topic.This methodology is arguably reasonable and appropriate for the time and resourcesallotted in that helps narrow down the focus by identifying scope and criteria, streamlinesresearch to focus on the most useful sources, and avoids redundancy. Taking the stepsoutlined in this paper will also make sure that your work is compatible with the needs andanticipated directions of the workgroup. This will hopefully help propel your work to thefront of this cutting edge field of consumption research and its application in policy,society, and science. Please enjoy your time in this position and know that the approachyou take to your work may be a deciding factor in how relevant and powerful your work will be.