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Contemporary society can be characterized as a consumer society that is increasingly confronted with the need to make a fundamental shift toward sustainability (Cohen et al., 2013). The decades following World War II have given rise to remarkable improvements in welfare, well-being, and technological progress. This step forward for humankind in Western nations has, however, come at great expense for the environment and communities in many parts of the world. At the same time, we should not lose sight of the fact that we have made significant improvements in innovating new technologies and, from the 1970s onwards, formulating policies to improve energy efficiency, manage risk, and achieve direct environmental objectives such as reducing emissions, banning chlorofluorocarbons, and developing waste-management systems. Nonetheless, many persistent and systemic challenges remain and new ones continue to become manifest on a massive scale.

In this chapter, I employ a transition perspective to reflect upon the emergence of contemporary society as a family of societal system changes leading to the present “regime.” I argue that efforts to date to address sustainability problems have been mainly pursued within the context of this regime, especially on the institutional level, only adding to its persistence. These initiatives have included advocating for more sustainable modes of production and consumption, which have been offset by a continuous drive for growth. My argument is that in the post-war period citizens have become better educated and conditioned as consumers, and that an important aspect of the historical transition to …