Sustainable living: the push and pull of everyday practices

In her quest for a sustainable lifestyle, Emma grapples daily with the tension between ingrained routines and eco-conscious ideals. In the kitchen, she excels at minimising food waste, carefully planning meals and composting diligently. Yet in the bathroom, she indulges in long showers, despite knowing the environmental cost. These contradictions evoke strong emotions: satisfaction in the kitchen, guilt in the shower. This vignette illustrates the emotional complexity embedded in daily practices as individuals attempt to reconcile routines with sustainability aspirations. To uncover the nuances of sustainable consumption, it is vital to understand mundane practices as interconnected and complex sets of social practices (Torkkeli et al., 2020) imbued with emotionality.

Departing from the traditional focus on changing attitudes or behaviours which often overlook the social constraints of everyday life (Joshi et al., 2021), this study centres on “how practices are performed and coordinated as entities” (Evans et al., 2012, p. 123), capturing a core tenet of practice theories (Shove, 2010; Warde, 2005). Theories of practice accentuate processes such as “habituation, routine, practical consciousness, tacit knowledge, [and] tradition” (Warde, 2005, p. 140), shifting focus from individual agents and their behavioural orientations to the practices themselves (Hargreaves, 2011). We conceptualise sustainable consumption as a coordinated set of “doings and sayings”, where bodily activities align with “shared understandings, rules and teleoaffective structures (emotions, attitudes, goals)” constituting the practice (Schatzki, 2001, p. 53).

While a practice-based approach to sustainability is growing (e.g. Beuscart et al., 2023; Gonzalez-Arcos et al., 2021), these studies lack theoretical inquiry into how sustainable practices are contested in real-life settings. Existing research often neglects the interplay among different practices (Khanijou et al., 2021), such as how sustainable consumption coexists with routines related to food, housing or work. Moreover, there is a lack of attention to the variations in how practices are performed (Gram-Hanssen, 2021) especially the role of emotionality and ontological security in explaining these variations. These gaps are explored further in the background literature.

Drawing on social practice theory (Schatzki, 2001; Warde, 2005), this study addresses the following research question: How do consumers experience and integrate newly introduced sustainable practices within established routines? Conventional models often assume motivation drives behaviour. But what if behaviour precedes motivation? Inspired by Robert McKain’s quote, “The common conception is that motivation leads to action, but the reverse is true – action precedes motivation” (Seah, 2015, para. 1), we implemented a “Living Green” campaign, prompting participants to act first by adopting unfamiliar sustainable practices in their daily lives. While the attitude–behaviour gap remains central to sustainable consumption discourse (Scheurenbrand et al., 2018), our practice-based exploration shifts focus to in situ enactments of sustainability, highlighting the overlooked roles of emotion and ontological security.

Unlike Phipps and Ozanne (2017), who show disruption driven by material constraints, we highlight how it emerges through embodied know-how and the emotionality and security tied to practice performances. Rather than applying a linear “stages-of-change” model, we trace how practices shifted throughout the “Living Green” campaign, where participants trialled sustainable actions in real-life contexts. As a practice-based field study, this design enabled us to capture situated experiences of practice change, extending beyond self-reported attitudes. Departing from conventional evaluations of campaign effectiveness, we offer an in situ perspective on how sustainable practices are integrated, resisted, abandoned or transformed as they unfold in everyday life.

Responding to calls for deeper inquiry into how pro-environmental behaviours unfold in everyday contexts (Hargreaves, 2011), this research reframes sustainability not as pre- or post-practice alignment but as a lived negotiation within established routines. This lens foregrounds the fluidity, tensions and moment-to-moment struggles involved in integrating or resisting sustainable practices. We extend current work on practice (mis)alignments by illustrating how newly introduced sustainable practices intersect with existing routines and by advancing practice-oriented research beyond Shove et al.’s (2012) meaning-material-competency framework to consider how emotions, identity, and security are embedded in practices. In doing so, this study offers theoretical insights into how sustainability is lived and contested in everyday life, while offering implications for more effective policy approaches to sustainable practices.

We adopt Garnelo-Gomez et al.’s (2022, p. 3273) definition of sustainable living as “patterns of action by people which meet basic needs, provide a better quality of life and minimise the use of natural resources and production of waste and pollutants, without jeopardising the needs of future generations”. Although sustainability has received considerable attention from marketing scholars over the past decades, there are limits in our knowledge and theorising (Davies et al., 2020; Garnelo-Gomez et al., 2022). For example, much attention has been on distinguishing those who practise sustainability from those who do not (Garnelo-Gomez et al., 2022). In addition, sustainable consumption is often simplified to consumer choice or product acquisition, placing emphasis on individual actions while neglecting their significance in sustaining social structures. This narrow perspective merely skims the surface of consumption dynamics (Jaeger-Erben and Offenberger, 2014).

Moreover, most studies rely on behavioural-intention models and quantitative methods to examine antecedents, typically socio-psychological drivers of sustainable consumption (Perera et al., 2018). As Perera et al. (2018) note, such approaches may overestimate sustainable behaviour due to social desirability bias in survey-based research. Consumers frequently express environmental concern in surveys but do not consistently “walk the talk” in their actual behaviour (Johnstone and Tan, 2015) known as the “green attitude-behaviour gap”. While identifying drivers of sustainable consumption is valuable, we still know little about how and why consumers engage with sustainable practices in certain aspects of their lives while resisting or renegotiating them in others (Garnelo-Gomez et al., 2022). Addressing this gap requires a perspective that treats sustainable consumption as socially embedded, unfolding through routines and norms.

Reframing consumption as integral to social behaviour reveals its embeddedness in socio-historical and cultural contexts (Jaeger-Erben and Offenberger, 2014). By considering elements beyond individual control such as social norms and culturally embodied consumption patterns, social practice theory broadens our understanding of consumption, emphasising habitual, ritualised behaviours often enacted without deliberate contemplation (Kropfeld, 2023). While theories of practice have laid the foundation for examining sustainable consumption (Kropfeld, 2023), our review identifies three key issues.

First, existing research frequently focuses on a single practice in isolation such as food waste (Sutinen and Närvänen, 2022), food shopping (Fuentes et al., 2021), plastic bag bans (Gonzalez-Arcos et al., 2021), clothing (McEachern et al., 2020) or cycling (Scheurenbrand et al., 2018). However, practices are not performed in isolation but are interwoven into broader networks of various other practices (Khanijou et al., 2021; Schatzki, 2001). While Scheurenbrand et al. (2018, p. 228) call for exploring “the dynamics of relations between practices”, their study remains confined to transport-related practices. In reality, daily life spans multiple interrelated domains, such as food, housing, transport, which must be understood together. This interconnectedness is crucial for understanding how sustainable practices are performed and integrated into the fabric of everyday life (Gram-Hanssen, 2021).

Second, existing research primarily explores reconfigurations of practices either before (e.g. Bartoloni et al., 2022; Thomas and Epp, 2019) or after misalignment (e.g. Gonzalez-Arcos et al., 2021; Phipps and Ozanne, 2017), or focus on symbolic meanings that shape sustainable engagement (e.g. Perera et al., 2018) and behavioural intentions for practice change (e.g. Haj-Salem and Al-Hawari, 2021; Kiss et al., 2024). McEachern et al. (2020), for instance, explored how interactive upcycling workshops and contemplative theatre performance serve as practice-based mechanisms for influencing sustainable change in fashion practices. Yet, few studies theorise how practices are embraced or contested in-situ, particularly when disruptions arise in routine life. As Hargreaves (2011, p. 80) asserts, “[…] close examination of behaviour change processes as they occur in situ reveals many more aspects and complexities of daily life than existing approaches capture” (p. 80). Investigating the in-situ enactment of sustainable practices unfolding in people’s everyday lives would yield valuable insights into effective design and implementation of sustainability campaigns.

Third, while much practice-based sustainability research draws on Shove et al.’s (2012) framework of meanings, materials and competency elements that constitute the practice, it is crucial to recognise that the performance of a practice is deeply intertwined with the individual and their socio-cultural identity. Schatzki (2012) argues that within the sociology of practice, there is a need to emphasise the security and identity-based ontic significance, normative objectives, emotions and the ultimate aims of practice to better understand the organisation of practices. Furthermore, the practice framework of meaning-materials and competency is critiqued for collapsing emotions, values, motivations, and end goals into a single and fixed “meanings” component (Spotswood et al., 2021). On the other hand, Schatzki’s (2002) notion of general understandings lays the groundwork for teleoaffectivity, understood here as how practices are oriented by both goals and emotional investments, by specifying the ends and purposes practices serve and ordering the emotional engagement of the activity. This study views general understandings as implicit and often taken-for-granted knowledge and assumptions that guide practices in a particular domain or social context. This approach allows for a more expansive conceptualisation, better suited to capturing the multiple embodied and intangible forces that sustain practices in the face of disruptions or strategic initiatives. As Friedland (2018) states, “The happening that is the performance of action is at once an unfolding in objective time and a joining of the teleological past, present, and future” (p. 1374).

Finally, contemporary practice-based scholars often overlook variations in practice performance (Gram-Hanssen, 2021), and mechanisms explaining these variations remain underexplored. Scholars have acknowledged the affective dimension of social practices (Gonzalez-Arcos et al., 2021), noting that disruptions often provoke emotional discomfort. Laing (1990) asserts that when routines are disrupted, the experience of ontological insecurity becomes so intolerable that individuals strive to reinstate equilibrium by whatever means necessary, suggesting innate impulses that can drive emotional attachment to environmentally unsustainable practices. Emotional energy generated during practice performance may influence consumer responsibilisation and the recruitment of practitioners into novel (sustainable) practices (Bajde and Rojas-Gaviria, 2021). Molander and Hartmann’s (2018) ethnography shows that emotion intensity tied to various practices varies with the differentially synchronised general understandings of individuals and households. However, research has yet to fully explain how the interplay between emotionality and ontological security accounts for the variations observed in the performance of everyday consumer practices.

Our review highlights three important gaps. First, most studies focus on isolated domains (e.g. food or transport), overlooking how practices are interwoven into broader networks of daily routines. Second, research has typically examined practices either before or after misalignments, with limited attention to their in-situ performance and negotiation as they unfold in real time. Third, prevailing frameworks emphasise material arrangements and competencies but give insufficient weight to emotions, identity, and ontological security, which influence how practices are sustained or reconfigured. Addressing these gaps, this study uncovers how these dynamics shape variations in the performance of sustainable practices as they are taken up, negotiated, or abandoned within the flow of daily life.

This study used a three-phase sequential qualitative multi-method approach that included brainstorming workshops, in-depth interviews, digital diaries, participant observation, and introspection. This design captured both performative and reflective aspects of sustainable living while ensuring rigour through triangulating multiple data (Lincoln and Guba, 1985). Conducted in New Zealand, the five-week Living Green campaign served as a collaborative platform to support participants in experimenting with sustainable living. As practices are ingrained in daily life and difficult to capture through interviews alone (Bava, Jaeger and Park, 2008), the campaign enabled rich, contextually grounded insights to emerge in real time. The fieldwork was structured into three phases, each designed to progressively deepen engagement and capture practice performances and meaning-making (see Table 1).

Participants were recruited through snowball and purposive sampling via the researchers’ networks. We focused on young adults aged 18–40 years to capture an extended transition-to-adulthood cohort. This age range reflects foundational developmental perspectives on young adulthood (Erikson, 1959) while aligning with life-course research showing that pathways into stable adult roles are increasingly variable and less temporally bounded (Shanahan, 2000). Prior research shows that young adults are early adopters of sustainable consumption (Kadic-Maglajlic et al., 2019) and exert strong peer influence (Ndubisi and Nataraajan, 2018). Although older cohorts also engage in sustainability, young adults remain a key group shaping cultural shifts towards sustainable practices. Participants varied in their levels of sustainability involvement from highly engaged to aspirational but inactive and included those already participating in sustainability initiatives. This diversity ensured the practices studied reflected real-life experiences and remained grounded in daily contexts. Eligible participants were responsible for or influenced household consumption decisions, including renters, students in shared housing, and individuals living with family. Sustainability professionals (e.g. environmental scientists) were excluded to maintain focus on everyday consumer perspectives. Proficiency in English was required.

Twenty-one participants (12 females, 9 males; aged 18–36; diverse ethnic backgrounds; Table 2) completed all three phases. The absence of attrition was attributed to the Facebook (FB) group’s ongoing engagement, the manageable campaign duration, and the convenience of online participation. Phase 1 workshop also built rapport and collective ownership, which motivated participants to follow through in later phases. Some participants continued posting beyond the campaign, indicating sustained interest. Each participant received a $50 voucher per phase (total $150). As vouchers were not disclosed during recruitment and given as tokens of appreciation rather than incentives, self-selection and response bias were minimised. While many participants did not have their own households, their experiences to experiment with sustainable practices in shared living spaces were central to our study. Since sustainability extends beyond homeownership, this approach was well-suited to capturing diverse experiences and practices.

To foster participant buy-in, three in-person workshops were conducted using the Nominal Group Technique (NGT; Claxton et al., 1980) at a researcher’s home. To ensure the process remained participant-driven rather than researcher-imposed, the researchers acted as facilitators to minimise bias and power dynamics. To provide a realistic and relatable context for idea generation, participants considered routine (e.g. food waste, reusable bags) and non-routine (e.g. eco-friendly gift-giving, sustainable travel) scenarios. These were developed using the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (briefly introduced to participants as prompts for idea generation) and literature on environmental psychology. The sessions yielded a wide range of ideas, later grouped under six themes (see  Appendix 1). Participants were then invited to join the FB group in preparation for Phase 2.

Phase 2 marked the start of the campaign, where participants trialled, the ideas generated in Phase 1, accompanied by multiple data sources described below.

A digital diary was maintained via the closed FB group, where participants posted daily reflections, photos, and captions documenting their experiences. All visual content, captions, interactions (likes/comments), and researcher notes were logged and later used for data triangulation and as elicitation prompts during interviews. The researchers conducted participant observation, closely monitoring online conversations, interacting with participants, and documenting fieldnotes. In addition, researchers engaged in introspection (McGouran and Prothero, 2016), documenting their sustainable living experiences through journal entries. We maintained a record of our reflections and journal entries, following an introspection method (Gould, 1991) akin to McGouran and Prothero (2016).

Midway through the campaign, 21 online interviews were conducted in English, each lasting 50–90 min. Discussion topics included attempted practices, reflections, challenges, feelings and experiences about the campaign, and interactions in the FB group. The mid-phase interviews provided a critical reflection point, allowing participants to reflect on their engagement.

Insights from these interviews informed FB group activities, leading to more interactive features like peer posts, tailored sustainability tips, polls, and Q&As. Sharing experiences also strengthened participants’ commitment to the campaign by fostering accountability and ongoing engagement.

Upon campaign completion, the same 21 participants were re-interviewed online (60–100 min each). These interviews explored participants’ reflections on their engagement, motivations, challenges and intentions to sustain their practices. Before the interviews, we tracked practices and action plans discussed to ensure key ideas were carried forward.

Ethical approval was granted by University Ethics Committee. Informed consent was obtained, with voluntary participation and withdrawal rights clearly communicated. To protect privacy, FB group access was restricted and community guidelines established. This study was framed as participatory research to minimise power imbalances, which fostered collaboration and ethical integrity. Data were securely stored on an institutional, password-protected server. Personally identifiable information was anonymised.

Three researchers conducted the interviews and met regularly during fieldwork to ensure consistency in content and approach. Protocols (see  Appendix 2) guided both interviews, with iterative refinement based on emerging insights. In total, 42 interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed (2,031 pages, 512,743 words). Detailed fieldnotes were kept to document observations, reflections, and emerging ideas. Researchers also maintained introspective journals to critically reflect on their positionality, ensuring that personal engagement with participants did not unduly influence interpretation. We used a thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2021) to identify patterns across interviews, digital diaries, and FB group interactions through an abductive strategy (Timmermans and Tavory, 2012) combining theory-driven and data-driven coding.

Following Lincoln and Guba’s (1985) criteria for trustworthiness, we established credibility through triangulation across multiple data sources and member checks, where participants reviewed key themes and provided feedback. We triangulated textual and visual data to ensure consistency between self-reported practices and observed behaviours. Rapport built during workshops and FB interactions further supported data credibility. To ensure dependability, we applied intercoder agreement procedures (Miles and Huberman, 1994). Three researchers independently coded a subset of transcripts and met regularly to compare interpretations, resolving discrepancies through iterative discussion and consensus. Confirmability was reinforced through reflexivity, with introspection journals and regular team discussions used to interrogate assumptions, challenge potential biases, and ensure that interpretations remained grounded in participants’ narratives.  Appendix 3 provides supporting data for our findings.

To trace how practices change, it is necessary to first establish their starting position. People do not approach change as blank slates; their orientations are already shaped by cultural logics, understood here as the sense making principles people draw upon to interpret their world and organise everyday practices (Roberti, 2024; Warde, 2005). In this study, we use the term cultural logics to describe the implicit frameworks of meaning and value through which individuals interpret, evaluate, and justify their practices. These logics are shaped through early socialisation and ongoing cultural participation, as individuals learn shared understandings of what is valued, desirable, or worthwhile. Over time, such culturally shaped meanings guide ways of doing that feel natural or self-evident within everyday life. Rather than focusing solely on embodied dispositions, cultural logics foreground shared meanings and normative assumptions that structure how practices are understood, justified, and sustained. Accordingly, to better understand how participants negotiated readiness or resistance to change during this campaign, we began by unpacking these cultural logics into their constituent meaning structures, routines, and tacit frameworks.

In what follows, we present four practice states identified in our typology (Figure 1): Pro-Transition, Constrained Embodiment, Negotiated Continuity and In-Reversal. These practice states emerge from two opposing guiding logics: one rooted in sustainability-based values, and the other in convenience and efficiency. Each orientation shapes these practice states by giving rise to distinct teleoaffective orientations (reflected by emotional orientations and goal-directed concerns), and particular dimensions of ontological security – understood as the sense of continuity and stability produced through routinised practices that sustain trust and predictability of everyday life (Giddens, 1984; Phipps and Ozanne, 2017). Together, these dynamics influence how participants interpret change, enact their practices, and negotiate them in daily life. The following sections therefore outline these foundational cultural logics before analysing each practice state in depth, supported by participant reflections and empirical examples.

This section introduces the shared cultural logics underpinning two practice states (Pro-Transition and Constrained Embodiment) discussed in subsequent sections. Analysis of participants’ digital diaries and interviews revealed that those who resonated most with the campaign’s ethos carried practical understandings aligning with sustainability, shaped by early socialisation. For these participants, sustainability-aligned values had become instilled within their habitus, defined as a system of durable and embodied dispositions that guide perception and intuitive judgements about what feels appropriate or “right” in everyday practice (Bourdieu, 1984). David captures the guiding force of his habitus when reflecting on his daily dishwashing routine, noting the taken-for-granted nature of his performance:

Drawing on other parts of David’s interviews, where he discusses his preference for handwashing dishes, attentiveness to keeping the tap off, and avoiding the dishwasher due to perceived water and energy use, his account illustrates how routines not only operate as largely unconscious habits but also as practices aligned with broader intentions, such as living sustainably. Schatzki (2002) refers to the goals inscribed in practice as part of teleoaffectivity, highlighting how practices are distinguished not just by outcomes but also by the emotional weight and normative purposes that sustain them (Warde et al., 2017).

As an entry point into analysis, we explored how participants’ sustainability-aligned logics remained embedded within pre-existing routines and interpreted their significance as anchored in emotion and the maintenance of ontological security. Echoing Molander and Hartmann’s (2018) findings, we observed that the more strongly the ends and goals inscribed in a practice matter to the participant, the greater the emotional intensity vested in it. Given the deeper meaning and heightened emotional investment associated with these pre-existing practices, some participants demonstrated strong enthusiasm in furthering their sustainability commitments and, during group brainstorming sessions (Phase 1), were observed by the research team readily proposing new practices for the group to trial.

Such a normative cultural frame enables unpacking how teleoaffectivity and ontological security shape the mechanisms through which participants negotiate change within two practice states grounded in sustainability-oriented cultural logics. For participants who openly embraced change, practices in pro-transition allowed them to rediscover kinship ties and engage in positive emotional exchanges that healed a fractured sense of self. By contrast, participants who most deeply embodied sustainability engaged in principled resistance and ultimately resisted adaptation.

The campaign prompted some participants to reflect on routines that typically blended into the background of their daily life. Given participants in this quadrant were socialised into general understandings aligning with wider sustainability goals, the campaign allowed them to rediscover lessons from childhood that had been forgotten in the pursuit of comfort and convenience. By encouraging participants to post in digital diaries, unconscious actions were brought into question, raising their tacit understandings to discursive consciousness (Giddens, 1984). As the following themes illustrate, the participants’ original practical understandings, cultivated in early life, helped practices reach a transitional phase and made adaptation smoother. This return to origin understandings reconnected participants with kinship ties, thereby restoring ontological security whilst repairing the fractured self-narrative as they worked to uphold these newly adapted practices.

Giddens (1984) posits that ontological security is rooted in early trust-based relationships, often formed through close kinship ties during childhood. In late modernity, where social relations are increasingly mediated by decontextualised and impersonal systems, ontological security becomes more fragile and precarious (Dupuis and Thorns, 1998). As contemporary lifestyles continue to evolve and shift, the daily rhythms that once supported ontological security continue to transform, often in destabilising ways that affect cognitive and emotional security (Campbell et al., 2020). As Shove et al. (2009) note, the repetitive nature of routine renders small adjustments to practices largely invisible, with time gradually altering practices beyond recognition. When participants were prompted to reflect on their current practices, many realised how far these had drifted from the teachings of their childhood.

For Maggie, a participant of Russian descent, the war in Ukraine cast a heavy shadow on her experience in New Zealand. She frequently described feeling powerless as friends and family were evacuated overseas. A seemingly simple cultural disposition of “wasting less” carried deep ontic significance for her, rooted in intergenerational teachings from childhood. As Maggie recalled, the value of reducing waste was passed down from her grandparents, who had grown up in a “post-war environment”. Her grandmother often reminded her: “do not throw food away, never throw food away”. Although she had moved away from this habit during her busy university years, Maggie now felt compelled to revisit this lesson, linking her renewed motivation to the intergenerational effects of war:

Using Figure 2 as a projective prompt in her interview, Maggie explained that returning to her family’s food practices was a smooth transition and a source of comfort. The familiar routine helped to re-stabilise her sense of ontological security amidst global instability:

Similarly, Jessie’s busy work schedule and long commute to the office made it difficult for her to move beyond comfort and convenience-driven food habits, requiring conscious effort and deliberation in contexts where time and energy often dominated her decision-making. Raised in a single-parent, low-income household, Jessie associated waste with discomfort and guilt:

These experiences, rooted in her early socialisation, have created normative cultural frames which dictate Jessie’s perception of right and wrong. Thus, rediscovering her mother’s practice of re-purposing containers to collect food scraps for the garden reminded Jessie of the deeper ontic significance attached to these small and often overlooked practices. Like Maggie, Jessie’s transition back to familial frameworks not only marks the return of a more sustainable way of handling food waste, but it also signifies a shedding of guilt and negative emotions that others without similar foundational understandings would have experienced the same way. Jessie explains:

These emotional rewards enabled participants like Jessie and Maggie to push past the momentary discomfort often associated with change. However, their motivation extended beyond nostalgia. As the subsequent theme explores, transitional practices allowed participants to repair fractured self-narratives by alleviating the dissonance they experience when engaging in unsustainable behaviours that work against their long-held values.

Ontological security reflects the deep-seated need to preserve a consistent and coherent sense of self. When actions align with values, a coherent sense of self is formed, creating continuity in how people understand themselves over time. In contrast, when individuals engage in actions that contradict their core values and avoid taking personal responsibility, their sense of self can become disrupted, leading to feelings of fragmentation and loss of identity (Delehanty and Steele, 2009). Among participants, fractured self-narratives were most evident in pre-established routines that had developed in response to the relentless busyness and unpredictability of their daily lives. For instance, Sandy, a young adult balancing the demands of work, university, and domestic responsibilities, described how her life had become organised around coping and compromise. Sandy found herself increasingly relying on shortcuts, such as using the clothes dryer at night, to manage her workload effectively, as she explained in her mid-campaign interview with the researcher:

Giddens (1984) suggests that identity is built upon judgements about oneself in relation to past experiences. In Sandy’s case, the campaign acted as a catalyst for reflection on her existing practices, and her interview revealed a negatively skewed self-narrative rooted in her current routine. She described herself as “lazy” and disorganised, revealing her perception had been shaped by the disjointed nature of her lifestyle. Initially, restructuring her schedule to include more sustainable habits, such as hanging out clothes to dry on a rack, elicited discomfort, as it required disrupting familiar routines. Yet she gradually adapted:

A key motivator in this transition was the emergence of a new, more positive self-narrative as Sandy began to perceive herself as someone more organised and ahead of her day:

Thus, within the context of pro-sustainable transition, newly adapted practices aligning with sustainability helped participants like Sandy repair a fractured self-narrative, replacing anxiety and self-criticism with a renewed sense of coherence in their self-concept.

Constrained Embodiment captures instances where sustainability-based values remain deeply embodied, anchoring pre-existing routines to broader environmental goals while limiting openness to further adaptation. Thus, participants described their pre-existing practices as naturalised and long-standing, also reflecting dispositions formed through early socialisation and kinship ties. However, unlike practices in states of pro-transition, the distinction here lies in how these inherited dispositions become so entrenched in ways that constrain, rather than facilitate, openness to further change. As David’s account illustrates, the historic imprint within his daily routines enables care for the environment to become a dispositional orientation that shapes how he now performs ordinary daily tasks such as shopping:

When analysing how practices within this embodied state negotiate change, we find strong emotions and a sense of security vested in pre-existing practices acting as constraints on further adaptation. In what follows, we trace how the campaign encounters a new normative boundary of care. Participants reach this boundary when they perceive themselves as carrying a greater emotional and physical burden of sustainability work. In response, participants use what we term principled containment to confine green reflection to the practices they are already undertaking.

Drawing on Tronto (2013), we understand care as the activities “we do to maintain, continue, and repair our “world” so that we can live in it as well as possible” (p. 19). Yet, as Shaw et al. (2016) note, care is often fraught with tension as caring needs often outstrip caring capacities. Throughout the campaign, this tension materialised as emotional trade-offs between “caring for the maintenance of social relationships” and the “caring for sustainability goals”. For example, as Jessie made an honest attempt to adopt new sustainable behaviours in the spirit of the campaign, she described the mounting resentment towards her flatmate and their reduced efforts to curb food waste:

Chatzidakis et al. (2021) treat the ongoing commitment to a shared meaning structure as the basis for solidarity. This framing helps explain Jessie’s strong emotional reaction to her flatmate’s wastefulness, which she interpreted as a breach, given that both had initially agreed to participate in the campaign and commit to the values it sought to enact. At this point, a tension emerges in Jessie’s obligations of care as she faces the choice of nurturing her relational obligations to her flatmate (Shaw et al., 2017) or compromising that bond to take up the role of enforcer of sustainable practices in the household. As we watched this dynamic unfold, the research team noticed how Jessie became one of our most highly engaged participants by contributing numerous Facebook posts focused on broadcasting her pre-established food practices to the group (see Figure 3). While her Facebook posts cast her as a positive influence within the wider campaign community, the interviews uncovered a more complex inner dialogue that told a different story. When interpreting Jessie’s diary contributions alongside this growing resentment, her proactive engagement may be understood as (re)enactments of care that become activated by the negative emotions stirred through the actions of close others. In contrast to the softening of boundaries to maintain solidarity (Chatzidakis et al., 2021), Jessie assumes the role of enforcer, seeking to safeguard the values she attaches to curtailing food waste, despite the potential cost of straining her relationship. Jessie explains:

In a similar fashion, Marie used interviews to express her sense of care and civic responsibility, often through the disappointment she felt towards others who disregard the rules of recycling that she herself deeply embodies:

This frustration prompted her to assume the role of recycling enforcer, feeling responsible for educating others on how to recycle more effectively. In her digital diary, Marie shared a photo (Figure 4) of her designated soft plastic recycling bin, which she regularly empties at a specialised recycling centre. Aware that many, including her friends and flatmates, are unaware that soft plastics are not accepted in regular curb-side bins, Marie took it upon herself to raise awareness:

Up to this point, our findings reveal the tensions between relational and practical expressions of care and how they are entangled in pre-established practices. Yet a new tension emerged when participants were encouraged to adopt new practices as part of the campaign. Rather than embracing these suggestions, participants expressed unexpected resistance, justifying their refusal by emphasising they were already doing their part. For example, when Marie was encouraged to share examples of non-routine practices she had engaged with since the beginning of the campaign, she replied:

Later in the interview, when the researcher encouraged Marie to walk to the grocery store instead of driving, Marie responded:

We conceptualise these moments as meeting the normative boundary of care. At this boundary, commitment does not expand but contracts as participants choose to selectively disengage from new practices while continuing to enforce their existing routines. Under this tension, care shifts away from sustainability and turns inward, becoming care for the self and protection against the emotional and physical burden of doing more. This resistance is not rooted in indifference. Rather, it reflects a form of principled containment in which participants actively delimit the scope of their caring practices. In doing so, we align with prior work in ethical consumption which highlights that caring dispositions do not always translate into caring acts (e.g. Shaw et al., 2016). However, our findings extend this literature by showing how deeply embodied commitments to sustainability can, under certain circumstances, produce limits rather than extensions of practice. Specifically, we demonstrate how sustainability-based normative logics can further curtail practices from green reflection. This mechanism helps explain how and why care reaches its limits, which complements recent work that highlights how care, even when expansive and hopeful, can be constrained by structural and infrastructural conditions of necessity and repair (e.g. Traill et al., 2024).

Changes in routine are often perceived as threats that disrupt a consumer’s sense of order, identity, and meaning, thereby undermining ontological stability (Campbell et al., 2020). In line with prior research on environmental risk, concerns become especially salient when they relate to the body, particularly through food consumption (Tulloch, 2002). Interviews revealed that proposed changes to food-related routines triggered heightened ontological insecurity, as participants associated these shifts with risks to their health and well-being. To illustrate how this mechanism operates, we turn to Pamela, whose food preparation practices have been passed down intergenerationally from her mother. Pamela, of Indian descent, draws on cultural and Ayurvedic traditions in which portions of food (such as peels) not consumed as part of the regular diet are often repurposed for medicinal or therapeutic use. Ayurveda, a traditional system of medicine originating in India, emphasises the interconnections among the body, food, and health (Verma et al., 2024).

Over time, these foundational beliefs about the health benefits of food components can become central to sustaining meaning and value in daily life (Rai et al., 2025). Thus, when speaking about her own food preparation practices, Pamela explained that her decision to cook vegetables with their skins is motivated by both sustainability and nutritional concerns:

Flockhart (2016) argues that ontological security supports agency by providing a psychological buffer against perceived threats to their physical and psychological well-being. To mitigate anxiety, people often rely on entrenched routines that provide stability and continuity. This emerges in Jessie’s account where, like Pamela, relies on food practices embodied earlier in life to safeguard her wellbeing. Mid-way through the campaign, Jessie described how her preference for local produce is informed by past health challenges and concerns about the contamination in imported goods:

For Jessie, previous illness and food product recalls heightened her anxiety, leading her to carefully research companies and scrutinise labels. This vigilance functions as a protective strategy that stabilises her ontological security but narrows the range of food practices she feels comfortable enacting. Consequently, Jessie is unwilling to experiment with unfamiliar products, alternative sources, or modifications to established routines as uncertainty is experienced as a potential threat to health and well-being. Unlike practices in Pro-transition where participants experience the campaign as a positive disruption, those in a constrained embodied state often perceived change as threatening. This contrast is particularly striking given that both states emerge from shared sense-making logics oriented towards sustainability. To make sense of this, we argue that, regardless of whether pre-existing practices continue or new practices are in transition, individuals who are socialised into sustainability-oriented dispositions interpret engagement, re-engagement, or disengagement from sustainability as actions deeply rooted in their sense of security and self-concept.

Not all participants entered the campaign with practical understandings aligning with wider sustainability goals. Echoing the professional mothers described by Thompson (1996), who valued products and services that helped them “stay on schedule” and “hold it together”, many participants prioritised practices that offered convenience and optimised efficiencies (Wrigley et al., 2019). For these participants, convenience was an end in itself – practices devoid of ulterior meanings beyond getting tasks done as quickly and easily as possible (Warde et al., 2017). For example, Adam used plastic bags not out of deliberate disregard for sustainability, but because it was the most convenient way to gather his items. Such actions may appear apathetic towards environmental concerns. In interviews, Adam asserts no malicious intent but explains that it is simply an instinctive habit imprinted on him since childhood. This framing of convenience as an inherited disposition that embodies cultural logic illustrates how maintaining efficiencies becomes embedded in the structure of daily life, eventually offering deep psychological value. Similarly, Andy noted:

These representative quotes mark the entry point for some participants who entered the campaign from this shared meaning structure. From this standpoint, two practice states emerged, each negotiating change in different ways. Participants who closely embodied convenience ultimately negotiated change by choosing continuity. In contrast, participants who experimented with new non-routine practices and made a genuine attempt to uphold them often reverted to prior routines.

Negotiated Continuity represents practices that were most entrenched in the cultural schema of efficiency and convenience. Therefore, decisions are often negotiated within this practice state, where the balance between environmental ideals and the practical benefit of convenience is typically tipped in favour of the latter. Adam’s quote highlights how momentary desire often takes precedence in his daily routines by stating how his practices are largely driven by the concept of:

This does not mean that their engagement in the campaign was devoid of any action. Much like those who deeply embody sustainability (Constrained Embodiment), these participants enthusiastically committed to new practices during the collective momentum built in group brainstorms (Phase 1). However, as new scripts rubbed against the rhythm of reality, they encountered unexpected pressure points and ultimately negotiated change by holding onto continuity.

In an attempt to understand the mechanisms behind how change is negotiated from this practice state, we approach it with the same analytical lens as those in Constrained Embodiment, given that both fundamentally oppose long-term change in varying capacities. In doing so, we note a parallel where resistance to sustainable adaptations in practice is not dispositionally bounded by belief or value alone. Those who deeply believe in sustainability-based values are just as susceptible to resistance as those who do not. By unpacking the psychological and emotional layers embedded within this practice state, we find that resistance to change (via continuity) was less a reflection of their indifference towards sustainability. Rather, it was more about preserving the emotional, sensory, and identity attachments that established practices lodged in this cultural schema had come to offer.

Despite the initial enthusiasm expressed during brainstorming sessions, many experienced a turning point once the campaign commenced, becoming hesitant to enact the very ideas they had previously proposed. Despite the research team’s efforts to prompt engagement through check-in posts, spot prizes, and group challenges within the closed Facebook group, these initiatives had a limited effect on participants in this practice state. The decision to continue with current practices embedded within convenience was primarily driven by the meditative and contemplative qualities embedded in their ritualistic routines, which offered a sense of psychological comfort and predictability. Interviews with Noah, Adam and Sandy revealed the choice to continue with long, hot showers for they served as a mindless, meditative ritual where “the feelings of warmth” allowed them the cognitive space to mentally adjust to whatever the day had set ahead. Although aware of the broader environmental impacts, the choice to continue partly stemmed from the emotional and sensory benefits embedded in these embodied routines. Thus, consistent with Phipps and Ozanne (2017), who observe how practices vary in significance, we find practices in this state to be less about their utilitarian function and more about the vested comfort they offer (Dupuis and Thorns, 1998). As the suggestion of altering routines suddenly became the catalyst for anxiety, Adam’s quote illustrates how long hot showers are not only a source of physical comfort, but have become a stabilising ritual in his current routine:

Thus, we find ontological security maintained not only through their decision to negotiate change by upholding the status quo, but also through the sensory and affective cues embodied in the practice, which offer participants a sense of control and grounding.

When the research team explored other avenues to explain why some participants continued unsustainable practices that privileged convenience, even though they joined a campaign devoted to sustainable change, it became evident that attempts to alter routines evoked fears of social sanctioning. As young adults are particularly attuned to external perceptions (Ndubisi and Nataraajan, 2018), sustainability-based actions risked positioning them as social outliers within their families or peer groups. For example, Marie highlights the perceived social awkwardness of bringing a reusable container to a restaurant gathering:

Similarly, Isabelle’s fear of subtle disapproval from her partner dissuaded her from op-shopping:

Drawing on research linking social norms to behavioural change (Goldstein et al., 2008), we contend that incorporating new routine and non-routine practices can face resistance because social compliance underpins the participants’ validation and identity. While participants initially joined the study out of a sense of environmental responsibility, interviews revealed that reflection on changing daily routines often triggered concerns about identity risk. These concerns created tension between sustainability aspirations and existing identity attachments. In response to these perceived threats, participants engaged in moral licencing, citing other sustainable behaviours they felt comfortable with to offset those they resisted. These counter-narratives functioned as protective buffers, insulating practices with deep ontological significance from disruption. For instance, Aiden resists switching to more sustainable grocery brands but quickly offers a compensatory behaviour like careful recycling instead. Such statements pre-empt criticism and maintain moral standing but are more than a cognitive loophole for pacifying guilt. Rather, they operate as practices with a deeper existential role, enabling individuals to preserve a coherent self-narrative both personally and publicly.

Unlike the previous practice state, where participants proposed new practices but failed to act, practices In-Reversal describe practices participants genuinely intended to adopt yet ultimately struggled to sustain. Despite their initial motivation, a gap emerged between intentions and their ability to maintain the adapted behaviours throughout the campaign. At the core of this reversal lies the realisation that certain unconscious routines had operated as ontological brackets, a term we use to describe the tacit boundaries that structure everyday practice. Inside these brackets, routines and familiar arrangements mute existential anxiety and sustain a sense of stability. When participants encountered the edge of the bracket, for example, when asked to alter familiar practices, these protective routines became unsettled. Anxiety surfaces, prompting individuals to restore continuity by reverting to the practices that lie securely inside the bracket. To alleviate the guilt of reverting practices during the campaign, participants weaponised ambivalence as a means of justifying a return to familiar and stable routines.

Among practices in reverse, we observed how the campaign disrupted the “protective cocoon” (Flockhart, 2016, p. 803) participants had formed through existing unsustainable routines. These routines, serving as ontological brackets, revealed their emotional and cognitive significance only when participants attempted to modify them. What seemed like simple habits became sites of psychological tension, echoing Chernbrov’s (2016) and Possamai-Inesedy’s (2002) view that ontological security often lies dormant and surfaces when threatened. A clear example comes from Adam, who initially embraced reducing energy use by turning off his second computer monitor (see Figure 5) but soon felt how destabilising the change was to his routine:

Flockhart (2016) highlights how ontological insecurity renders the individual innately driven to restore the equilibrium that is vital to their sense of being. Thus, upon encountering the ontological bracket, Adam’s sustainable intentions are swiftly abandoned, as resources are redirected towards reinstating the practice now recognised as critical to his psychological and emotional stability, as he explains:

For other participants, unconscious ontological anchors surfaced as a bracketed routine under unexpected or high-pressure conditions, triggering non-volitional responses regardless of earlier intentions. For example, Aiden initially committed to reducing and monitoring his shower times (Figure 6). Yet, a minor shift in his work schedule led to the abandonment of this new practice:

Similarly, Nancy recounted the psychological conflict she faced when running late for work:

Hence, when participants encountered new and unanticipated situations that required sudden trade-off decisions that demanded a choice, they often reverted to ontologically bracketed routines that suspend anxiety and align with their immediate need for comfort and efficiency, even when recognising such actions were not the “right” thing to do. These reversals reveal how participants defaulted to familiar actions less as conscious choices than as mechanisms for restoring cognitive and ontological consistency. In this sense, moments of reversal reflect cognitive dissonance, as the desire to follow campaign goals clashed with the emotional and psychological pull of everyday routines. Brackets thus function as stabilising forces, enabling participants to navigate their lives with a sense of security and coherence. Extending work on the gap between sustainable intentions and behaviours (e.g. Connolly and Prothero, 2008; Gleim and Lawson, 2014), this practice states illustrates how even welcome adjustments can unsettle ontologically anchored routines, and when such stabilisers are disturbed, participants may experience a form of existential unease that prompts a reversion to the familiar.

To alleviate the guilt associated with the newly surfaced intention-behaviour gap, participants often invoked ambivalence towards sustainability as a justification for reverting to convenience-based routines. For instance, although Maggie acknowledged her intention to abandon some newly adopted behaviours after the campaign, she rationalised her retreat by expressing doubt about the efficacy of her individual action, stating:

For others, the high emotional cost of maintaining newly adopted sustainable practices became the tipping point for disengagement. Maggie, for example, described her experience of making homemade strawberry jam as anger-inducing and ultimately not worth the effort:

Similarly, Vivian expressed emotional discomfort when prioritising sustainable behaviours over social gratification, stating:

While practices in states of reversal and pro-transition both reflect the powerful influence of emotion during practice adaptation, a key distinction lies in how emotion is processed. In the pro-transitional practice state, negative emotions were transformed through reflective adaptation and the reparation of fractured self-narratives. Within the In-Reversal state, adverse or ambivalent emotions accumulated and were used as justification to disengage. In this context, participants feel vindicated, even rewarded, when abandoning the practice altogether. Echoing Molander and Hartmann’s (2018) assertion of emotion’s regulatory power in practice, participants here appear to “weaponise” their negative or ambivalent emotions, using them to neutralise the dissonance of abandoning sustainability goals and to reaffirm the comfort of pre-existing routines.

Addressing the imperative highlighted by Hargreaves (2011), who called for a closer examination of change as it unfolds in real-life contexts, our findings move beyond pre-and post-practice alignment to examine the lived negotiation of established practices, revealing the mechanisms that underpin how sustainability-based practices are contested in situ. By demonstrating how socialisation into opposing cultural logics embed practices with specific teleoaffective orientations and sources of ontological security, and by synthesising these into a single typology, we reveal how the interlocking intricacies of emotion, agency, socialisation, values, and security can either propel or detract practices from green reflection.

While our typology identifies four practice states (Pro-transition, Constrained Embodiment, Negotiated Continuity, and In-Reversal), we acknowledge that practices are rarely static. Drawing inspiration from Dolbec et al. (2022), who reveal how craft and commercial coffee firms interact and evolve in an asynchronous fashion, our typology also captures dynamism by revealing several transitional elements that facilitate movements between some practice states while impeding interaction between others. Therefore, we begin our discussion by first outlining how teleoaffectivity and ontological security operate at opposing frequencies between different practice states. As a result, distinct mechanisms often materialise as primary or secondary enablers (for practices embedded in sustainability-based cultural frames and logics) or enforcers (for those more embodied in cultural frames connected to convenience and efficiency) that drive practices back towards original dispositions, logics and understanding.

As illustrated in Figure 7, Constrained Embodiment and Pro-Transition as practice states occupy the upper and lower left-hand quadrants. These practice states convey a developing or pre-established attachment to sustainability-based practices, reinforced primarily through teleoaffective structures that guide purposeful and emotionally invested action. Here, increasing emotional intensity (i.e. enforcing care for sustainable practices or reconnecting with kinship ties) primarily enable participants’(re)attachment to sustainability-based practices, aligning with the cultural understandings formed through early socialisation. Since both practice states have been socialised into practical understandings aligning with broader sustainability goals, we argue that deepening emotional investments drive ongoing (re)enactments, enabling participants to move fluidly between states of transition and embodiment, as all practices gradually (re)align with their primary foundational cultural logics and early socialised understandings.

Furthermore, ontological security emerges as a secondary enabler, collectively shaping how perceptions of risk and reward are perceived between these practice states. Specifically, perceptions of risk tend to materialise among practices in Constrained Embodiment, deterring practices within this state from deviating from the status quo. In contrast, ontological rewards, such as repairing the fractured self-narrative, are more salient among practices in transitional states. Therefore, we postulate that ontological security plays a secondary, yet critical, role in enabling movement between these states as both risks and rewards remain tethered to the broader pursuit of sustainability. Thus, irrespective of where participants fall along the continuum between embodiment and pro-transition, ontological security provides an additional impetus that enables practices to (re)attach with their origin understandings.

Among Negotiated Continuity and In-Reversal practice states (situated on the right upper and lower quadrants), we observe a reflective pattern where current practices hold heightened ontological significance, positioning ontological security as the primary enforcer that reinforces existing routines and discourages engagement with unfamiliar sustainable actions. Here, we observed anxiety, identity preservation, and momentary discomfort routinely driving practices towards their original orientations aligning with convenience-oriented goals. As attempts to disrupt the status quo triggered adverse emotions, teleoaffective dimensions emerged as a secondary enforcer driving practices back to existing routines. Participants appeared motivated to shed adverse emotions by withdrawing sustainability-based adaptations, thereby restoring their ontological security. Together, ontological (in)security triggers adverse emotions, allowing participants to smoothly transition between these practice states, as both intertwine to reinforce the preservation of origin meaning structures and practical understandings over time.

The mirroring between the two upper quadrants (Constrained Embodiment and Negotiated Continuity) also provides important insights as to why horizontal movements are more complex and difficult to achieve. As both practical states embody oppositional cultural logics and understandings, rooted in socialisation processes that extend back to childhood, any horizontal transition would require a process of unlearning and disembodying their practical understandings rooted in their primary socialisation and culture.

Moreover, whilst the practice states located in the bottom quadrants represent newly adapted practices (Pro-Transition and In-Reversal), participants remained primarily driven by practical understandings birthed from childhood. As such, these transitional states operate on polarising ontological and emotional frequencies, making transitions complex due to different affective and psychological returns. For example, practices in Pro-transition offered positive ontological rewards and emotional reinforcement, providing a stable affective and psychological pathway back to their primary dispositions. In contrast, practices In-Reversal experienced a disruption to entrenched ways of thinking and behaving, generating psychological and emotional discomfort that ultimately led to abandonment as participants instinctively re-enact the practices aligning with their primary cultural logics. In each case, their primary and secondary mechanisms interact with their origin understandings in distinct ways, thereby constraining the likelihood of movement across the typology.

Beyond mapping transitions across the typology, this framework contributes to research on ontological security (Phipps and Ozanne, 2017) and teleoaffectivity in practice (Molander and Hartmann, 2018; Spotswood et al., 2023; Welch, 2020). Responding to Phipps and Ozanne’s (2017) call for greater attention to how ontological states underpin consumer practices, our typology demonstrates that pre-existing ontological states can either enable or hinder engagement with new practices in situ. We extend their work by showing that ontological states may be hierarchically ordered, with ontological security assuming a dominant role in guiding practices in some states (e.g. Negotiated Continuity and In-Reversal), while remaining secondary for others (Constrained Embodiment and Pro-transition).

Finally, we expand on existing research on teleoaffective structures (Molander and Hartmann, 2018; Spotswood et al., 2021; Spotswood et al., 2023; Welch, 2017), illustrating how competing cultural logics, such as those valuing sustainability versus convenience, are linked to distinct “emotional currencies”. By emotional currencies, we mean the affective dimensions of consumption practices, for example, the feelings of pride, joy, anxiety, or guilt that shape how individuals perceive and engage with sustainable consumption. We demonstrate how such emotional currencies differ between competing goal orientations and how these “emotional differences” can influence the success or failure of practice change. For instance, attitudes favouring sustainable practices may generate feelings of pride and purpose, whereas the same practices may evoke anxiety or resistance for those valuing convenience as a primary goal. As such, these emotional differences create varying affective responses that either support or obstruct the adoption and sustained performance of sustainable practices in everyday life. Future research might explore how conflicting goal orientations continue to generate affective tensions in diverse sustainably relevant domains, such as transport, food, or household energy practices.

Building on our findings, Table 3 offers a practical guide for supporting sustainable practice adoption across the four identified states. By operationalising the typology, the table outlines tailored strategies based on the emotional, ontological, and contextual traits of each group enabling more targeted and effective sustainability programmes than generic behavioural change models typically provide. Individuals in Constrained Embodiment states benefit most from reinforcement strategies that validate their existing commitments and preserve ontological security. Those in Pro-Transition require reassurance and emotionally resonant cues to maintain change. The Negotiated Continuity state calls for long-term cultural and structural shifts while In-Reversal requires strategies that manage intention and behaviour gaps and reduce regression. The framework helps identify which enablers to leverage and which affirming strategies to deploy through emotional rewards, ontological reassurance and risks perceptions mechanisms in policy and campaign designs.

Corporate actors can draw upon the typology to guide segmentation, product design, and consumer engagement strategies. The following are managerial implications that extend beyond our empirical findings and are offered as practice-theoretic extrapolations. For example, Pro-Transition individuals may be supported through low-risk trials and meaningful emotional rewards that sustain engagement, while In-Reversal or Negotiated Continuity consumers may benefit from non-judgemental, low-effort re-entry prompts that normalise lapses and make restarting easy. At the community level, although our data did not examine community infrastructures, we propose that shared infrastructures (e.g. community gardens) can plausibly scaffold sustainable practices by stabilising material and social supports; we therefore flag these as directions for future research and implementation trials. While our evidence focuses on individuals and household-level behaviours, the insights have broader relevance for systemic change. Everyday practices are the building blocks of wider socio-material systems. Understanding how such practices are anchored in emotional significance and ontological stability provides a foundation for rethinking policies, markets, and infrastructural designs, as well as the development of more effective promotion programmes that encourage and sustain sustainable living.

This study is not without limitations, particularly in relation to scope and methodology. The five-week duration of the campaign, conducted in a single city in New Zealand, constrains the temporal and contextual breadth of our findings. Because sustainable practices are often built gradually, our design captures only the early dynamics of experimentation and negotiation. Future research would benefit from longer-term campaigns to examine how such practices are sustained, adapted, or abandoned, offering deeper insight into the processes of change. Conducting the study across different cities or countries would also allow for examination of how sustainability is negotiated within diverse socio-cultural and material contexts, potentially revealing cross-cultural variations in the emotional and ontological drivers of practice (or resistance to it).

The New Zealand context, often framed by the “clean, green and beautiful” national identity may also shape how sustainability is perceived and enacted. As such, caution is warranted when generalising our findings beyond this setting. Comparative studies across countries with varying environmental identities and infrastructure could further elucidate the interplay of emotions, identity, and ontological security in supporting or inhibiting sustainable consumption. Another limitation lies in the composition of our sample. Many participants were not homeowners and thus may not have had full control over household-level decisions or infrastructure, which are often central to long-term sustainability practices. Furthermore, the predominance of younger participants may limit the applicability of our findings to older demographics whose routines, resources, and responsibilities differ. The research design may also have introduced reactivity bias, as participants knew they were being observed and self-reporting via digital diaries. Finally, introspection as a reflexive method while valuable in capturing experiential nuance, remains subjective and potentially influenced by researcher bias. Despite these limitations, our multi-method design and triangulation across data sources provided rich contextual insight and interpretive depth.

In departing from the conventional emphasis on attitudes preceding behaviour, this study focuses on how (un)sustainable consumption is practised in situ. To this end, we build on a growing body of research that conceptualises sustainable and unsustainable consumption as a set of social practices (e.g. Shove, 2010; Warde, 2005). Our research highlights the emotional, habitual, and ontological dimensions in the specific context of household sustainability, demonstrating how these elements shape the performance, persistence, and resistance of sustainable practices in everyday life. While attitudinal change remains important, we acknowledge the ongoing challenges in closing the attitude–behaviour gap, where consumers frequently fail to translate intention into action. Our findings show that the ongoing challenges cannot be explained by a lack of motivation alone. Whether action becomes sustaining depends on how new practices are emotionally experienced and whether they can be integrated into everyday life without unsettling people’s sense of stability and self. In conclusion, we demonstrate that action may precede motivation, but only when practices are supported, affirmed, and able to endure. This highlights the need to go beyond awareness-raising and instead focus on supporting the enactment and embedding of sustainable practices in daily life to drive meaningful change.

The authors extend their appreciation to all the participants for entrusting us with their valuable reflections and experiences. We are grateful for the time and effort they invested in this research project, without which this work would not have been possible. The authors also thank the Associate Editor and the anonymous reviewers for the considerable time and effort devoted to the review process. Their thoughtful and constructive feedback helped strengthen the manuscript, and authors found the process both valuable and enjoyable.

This project received funding from a Contestable Research Grant provided by the Faculty of Business, Economics, and Law at Auckland University of Technology (AUT).

Both first and second authors contributed equally to the drafting and revisions of this manuscript.

Waste reduction

Water consumption

Take shorter shower; don’t leave tap running; change shower head; wait till full load when use dish/laundry washer; cleaning tasks e.g. using the water from the washer to mop the floor; install a water butt; not wash denim (or other clothes as deemed appropriate) frequently; collect rain water for good purpose; reuse water for watering plants; use the fountain app that shows where the water fountains are so there is no need to buy water bottle.

Energy consumption

Switch off standby appliances, unplug electronic gadgets when not in use; turn heater down; hang clothes to dry rather than using a drier; dry clothes in a heated room (during winter); close the pan with a lid while cooking (it reduces the amount of energy to boil water by 75%); not turn on heat pump (or electronics appliances) unless is absolutely needed, maintain speed on motorway (auto-cruise); wash clothes on sunny day.

Food waste

Cut down food waste e.g. good meal planning; keep food fresh (using jars, containers to keep fresh for longer); cook the right portions; compost veggie waste; store bread in the freezer; keep bananas out of the fridge and away from other fruits; store potatoes and onions away from each other.

Recycling and reuse:

• Washing recycling before putting it out to be recycled so it doesn’t go into the refuse.

• Using your own water bottle/food container.

• Do not order too much at the restaurant so we can avoid taking away the leftovers. Always bring containers in case there is leftover – say no to plastic takeaway containers.

• Saving old food containers which can be repurposed instead of throwing into refuse or recycling.

• Rinse all the materials that go into the recycling bins. Contaminated bottles/containers will not be recycled.

• Recycle soft plastic.

• Common contaminants found in the recycling bin include nappies, food and textiles – these should never be placed in the recycling bin as they can spoil other material they come into contact with.

Consumption and material use:

• Reusable feminine products (e.g. period pants and underwear).

• Getting rid of fast fashion (buying from the hospice and thrift shopping).

• Reusable nappies!

• Using sheets and muslin cloths to make make-up removers and face cloths.

• About your wardrobe: Ask “Will I wear it at least 30 times?” before buying; avoid shopping online as we tend to buy more and clothes shipped across the world have a significant carbon footprint, and often come packaged in plastic; shop alone (not with friends as we tend to buy more when shopping with others); try second hand and clothes swaps; unsubscribe/unfollow all fast fashion related social media/emails.

• Fashion – alter or reinvent so the clothes look new/with a different style.

• Sustainable gift idea:

  • ✓ Buy gift of experience (e.g. movie ticket).

  • ✓ DIY the gift.

  • ✓ Say no to gift wrapping paper.

  • ✓ Be conscious about what a truly sustainable gift is.

  • ✓ Op shop for a gift.

Food and diet:

• Less fast food.

• Going to the farmers’ market and buying eggs locally.

• Ways to eat a lower-carbon, sustainable diet, e.g. eat vegetables instead of meat for one meal a week while still meeting dietary needs.

• Only buying food products that are sourced sustainably.

• Consider a sustainable barter system – exchange food.

Mobility and energy

Ways to reduce carbon footprint in our daily life: car pool, take public transport, walk whenever possible.

Digital footprint

Ways to reduce digital footprint: streaming at a standard definition instead of high definition; use energy-savers on the screens (e.g. sleep mode on computers and auto power down on TVs); go paperless e.g. choose the option to receive emails over letters (inform bank, council, Watercare, etc. to switch to paperless); ask retail staff to email receipt instead of printing it off; reduce phone/gadget time (spend time with families and friends instead); disable some of the apps for certain period – monitor time spending on smartphones; consider refurbished electronics devices.

Opening

Start with some warm-up questions about the participants’ general consumption patterns and mini-tours around their hobbies, interests, consumption and shopping habits:

• Before we move on, I wonder if you would walk me through your typical day

• Anything you would like to share with us about your shopping (or other consumption) habits

• What is important to you when it comes to buying stuff? What about disposing of products that you no longer need? (use examples to contextualise, e.g. buying clothes, groceries).

Main questions:

• What does being a “responsible consumer” mean to you? [Can you describe a person who is responsible for their consumption or me please? What type of characteristics would responsible consumers have?]

• What made you decide to join this campaign? Tell me about your decision. What were you expecting when you signed up for this campaign?

• If you are asked to promote this campaign to your friends, what story would you tell/share?

• When you think about the campaign, what is the first thing that comes to mind? Can you give me three words to describe this [Probe on these words provided].

• Reflecting upon your first two weeks of participation in the campaign, can you tell me about the things that worked? What about things that didn’t work? [Allow the participants time to browse through the photos/contents of the group chat to assist them in the recall process]

  • ✓ Can you describe for me your experience? What part did you enjoy the most? How does this experience enrich/disrupt your daily routines? What does this experience mean to you?

• Can you share with me an example of the practices/ideas generated from our brainstorming sessions, which you actually tried out? How did it go? How did you feel?

  • ✓ Use third person: Why do you think other people practice/do not practice these ideas? What would encourage other people to try these practices?

• Tell me more about any new ideas or actions you practiced that were not discussed in our brainstorming or something that was unplanned? How did you feel about your actions?

• You mentioned that you have … [refer participants to what they posted on FB] during the campaign, could you describe for me how you went about doing that?

  • ✓ What inspires you to try that out? How did it go? Which part did you like/dislike about the experience?

• Tell me about any unexpected situations that happened during the campaign – one that prevented you from trying or practising these ideas?

  • ✓ What was the hardest part? Can you use one word to describe this experience/how you feel?

  • ✓ How did you overcome these challenges? How did you feel?

  • ✓ What are the 3 items/things/resources that can help you overcome these challenges?

• Can you tell me your plan for the next two weeks – action that you will or will not continue doing? Is there any new practice you plan to try that you didn’t have a chance to do so earlier? What will you do differently over the next half of this campaign?

Conclusion:

• Thank the subjects for their participation

• Ask if they have any questions and anything else they would like to say.

Opening

Start with some warm-up questions, e.g. overall, what do they think (and feel) about the campaign; at what point during the campaign did you begin to feel the difference in your daily life?

Main questions:

• Please share with me your overall experience with this one-month campaign participation: [Note: Allow the participants time to browse through the photos/contents of the group chat to assist them in the recall process]

  • ✓ What stands out for you as your most significant experience from this campaign? What does this mean for other aspects of your daily routines [or what impact does this experience have on other aspects of your daily life]? What do you find most rewarding regarding the campaign?

  • ✓ What would you say are the most challenging parts of your experience? What did not work?

  • ✓ Any new ideas or practices you practised since the first interview? or something that was unplanned?

  • ✓ How have your families and friends responded to your participation in this campaign?

• I enjoyed browsing the photos you shared in the online chat group…. You mentioned (or you shared a photo) that you have [refer to examples of the participants’ diaries: practice compost scraps, use no/less plastic, car pool, etc) during the campaign. Could you describe for me how did you go about doing that?

  • ✓ Tell me a story about what is going on in the picture. How did you feel about that action? [Note: pick 2–3 interesting posts to discuss]

• Tell me about any situations that occurred during the campaign – one that prevented you from trying or practising the ideas? (Note: probe for what situations have occurred that prevent them from engaging in sustainable practices; and what they have learned from these experiences that have shaped their mind-set and their consumption practice).

  • ✓ What made it difficult for you to follow through on your thinking and new ideas and intentions? What might compel you to continue this practice? What can be done to help you continue these practices?

    •  – Note: 1) may use a third-person approach, e.g. what do you think would be the hardest part for a person?; 2) we asked a similar question in the mid-phase interview – gauge if the participants said the same thing or if new/different responses were shared this time.

• Over the past month, you have experienced shifting from your daily routines to try out some new things/practices.

  • ✓ How has your daily routine changed/impacted during this period? How has your life changed since you started being involved in this campaign? Can you tell me more?

    •  – What does this mean to you (and your family)? How do you feel about the change/impact

    •  – How did you manage that? Was it tough to do that?

  • ✓ Based on this experience, can you please tell me more about the most disruptive experience/story? What do you think makes you feel so? How important is this to you?

    •  – What about the second/third most disruptive experience during the campaign? How did you feel?

    •  – What are the 3 things that can help facilitate this process/help reduce the disruption?

  • ✓ Please give me three words that come to your mind that are associated with your experience with this campaign.

• What have you gained from participating in this campaign? Tell me the sacrifices you had to make to practice these ideas?

• What impact do you think this campaign could have?

• Please reflect on your experience throughout the campaign, in what way did this campaign (experience) change you?

• Looking back at your past consumption practices, what will you do differently after this experience/campaign when you return to your normal life? Can you tell me more?

Conclusion:

• Thank the subjects for their participation

• Ask if they have any questions

• Ask if they are happy for you to contact them if you have further questions about the interview