Subsistence and Sustainability: From Micro-Level Behavioral Insights to Macro-Level Implications on Consumption, Conservation, and the Environment

The objective of this article is to develop micro-level behavioral insights at the intersection of poverty and the environment and derive macro-marketing implications. This micro-level behavioral perspective encompasses psychological and socio-cultural phenomena and emphasizes consumption and conservation. Construing the environment in a broad sense to encompass living circumstances, we conducted interviews to uncover the distinctive nature of environmental issues in subsistence marketplaces. Our findings emphasize the importance of different levels of spatial and psychological distance as well as a number of coping strategies that reflect individuals and communities sustaining themselves through survival, relatedness, and growth. We link distances and coping to efficacy and motivation to act, and derive implications for macro-level issues in marketing management, and public policy.