Understanding sustainable consumption is essential for responsible marketing and societal wellbeing; motherhood identity transitions provide a relevant and novel context for exploration, as mothers are influential agents of socialisation and change. This study aims to explore practices, motives and tensions around sustainable consumption in motherhood identity transitions.
An interpretivist philosophical position was adopted. Interviews were conducted with a purposively sampled group of UK residents, comprising 22 first-time and experienced mothers whose babies were born in the previous twelve months.
Having a new baby brings about distinctive opportunities for sustainable practices: this group of mothers demonstrates a circular “ecosystem” of sustainable consumption, which involves opting for products that are considered good quality and durable, reusing items and exchanging them. Thrift and organic consumption align with “good mother” ideology, while sustainable consumption can be positioned as a form of “relational consumption”, facilitating the development of evolving mother identities.
Highlights directions for future research such as how sustainable consumption interacts with competing identity imperatives.
Enhanced understanding of this, and other, transitional identities can impact responsible marketing and social policy interventions for sustainable consumption in the context of motherhood and beyond.
Informs how motives for mothers’ sustainable consumption interact with the (re)construction of personal and social identities at a time of change, with implications for associated wellbeing.
Provides a novel explanation of the nature of, and need for individual responsibility, “good mother” ideology, and social affiliation within relational communities as motives for sustainable consumption practices among transitional mothers.
