Author(s)

M. Davodi-Far

Abstract

Although environmental sustainability offers a vision to preserve the earth’s resources while sustaining life on earth, there tends to be injustice and disparity in how resources are allocated across the globe. As such, the question that arises is whom will environmental sustainability benefit? Will the rich grow richer and the poor become worse off? Is there a way to find balance between environmental sustainability and still implement and achieve success with distributive justice theories? One of the facets of justice is distributive justice; the idea of balancing benefits and costs associated with the way in which we disseminate and consume goods. Distributive justice relies on how the cost and burdens of our resource allocation can be done reasonably and equitably and spread across a number of societies, and within each society spread across diverse groups and communities. In the end, the question is how to interact with the environment and diverse communities of today and of those communities of the future. Keywords: consumerism, environmental sustainability, sustainable development, social justice, social equity, distributive justice. 1 Introduction To be a consumer in the United States (US) is simple. In fact, it is the wealth and abundance of goods that attracts many immigrants to the US. Who would not want to be able to live in a spacious home, drive a large vehicle and frequent, mega stores such as Wal-Mart and warehouse stores such as Costco? In fact, there is something addictive and seductive about the way goods and services are sold in the US. It is not that there is a great necessity, but rather marketing is done so well and with such skill that the buyer \“has to have” the items that they

Keywords

consumerism, environmental sustainability, sustainable development, social justice, social equity, distributive justice.