This paper provides a comprehensive review of the academic literature on the gendered aspects of household consumption and sustainability, focusing on how sustainable consumption and care work intersect within the domestic realm. In Western countries, the shift toward more sustainable lifestyles often disrupts well-established routines related to food, cleaning, energy use, and transportation—tasks closely tied to care work, which predominantly falls on women. The paper argues that transitioning toward more sustainable household practices requires reducing and redistributing care work, transforming work environments, and fostering an ethos of care that extends beyond the household to include other people and the planet. Without addressing gender inequalities, efforts to promote sustainability risk deepening these disparities. The authors advocate for rethinking households as key sites of societal change by acknowledging the relational and gendered dimensions of both care and consumption.
