Transformative Topics June 2025

As we reflect on June being a month of many environmental focused days, including June 5th's World Environment Day, and that we recently held the TCR Conference - a dialogical conference that inspires scholars and practitioners to work together to advance the field, we feature work by Martin Mende, Abhishek Borah, Maura L. Scott, Lisa E. Bolton, and Leonard Lee, "People, peace, prosperity, and the planet: A journey toward sustainable development in consumer research" in the Journal of Consumer Research.

In the spirit of Transformative Topics newsletter, Martin Mende and Maura Scott reflect on the backstory - what motivated them and their co-authorship team to write the article —and their hope for where future research will go. Have a read. We hope that their calls to actions spark the field to do impactful and transformative research:

"In reflecting back on what motivated this paper, there were three interrelated considerations that propelled our authorship team forward. Each highlights the deep alignment between the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) and the priorities of the marketing and consumer research field, and particularly the Transformative Consumer Research community. These included:

1. First, while marketing scholars have made important contributions to sustainability-related topics, global progress toward the UN SDGs remains uneven and, in many domains, alarmingly inadequate. This shortfall underscores a disconnect between research efforts and their tangible societal impact. Given marketing’s core focus on influencing behavior, shaping market systems, and generating value, the discipline is inherently suited to address many of the behavioral and systemic barriers that impede SDG attainment. The TCR community, in particular, is founded on a mission to enhance individual and collective well-being through rigorous and socially relevant scholarship. Its explicit orientation toward vulnerable populations, equity, and long-term welfare uniquely positions it to bridge this research-impact gap and to contribute more directly to the realization of the SDGs.

2. Second, we feel that marketing and consumer research—especially work grounded in the principles of TCR—has the potential to exert substantial influence on the SDG agenda. With its deep engagement in topics such as prosocial behavior, consumer empowerment, sustainability, and marketplace inclusion, the TCR community brings a rich conceptual toolkit and a strong normative commitment to addressing societal challenges. However, much of this work remains disconnected from the broader global framework provided by the SDGs. By explicitly adopting the SDGs as a strategic focal point, the marketing and consumer research community can amplify its voice in interdisciplinary and policy arenas, deepen its societal relevance, and accelerate its contributions to pressing global priorities such as poverty alleviation, health equity, gender equality, and environmental sustainability.

3. Third, we contend that the SDGs represent not only a global imperative but also a robust platform for theoretical innovation within marketing and consumer research. The interdependent and multidimensional nature of the goals demands new conceptual frameworks capable of capturing the complexity of lived consumer experiences, institutional dynamics, and systemic transformation. Marketing and (transformative) consumer researchers, with an emphasis on real-world impact, critical reflexivity, and methodological pluralism, are particularly well-equipped to engage with this complexity. By anchoring research in the SDGs, marketing scholars are well positioned to develop new theories of consumer well-being, marketplace justice, and social change—advancing the field both empirically and theoretically.

In respect to what we found - there is a mixed and evolving picture of the way consumer/marketing research examines the UN SDGs, characterized by growing interest but limited integration. In particular, i) explicit engagement with the UN SDGs and the SDG framework remains relatively nascent and fragmented; ii) there is more attention to certain goals (i.e., SDG 12 - Responsible Consumption & Production) over others, which limits the capacity of research to inform how to address the inter-related nature of SDGs; and, encouragingly, iii) there is an uptick and recent movement for more deliberate alignment with the SDGs, particularly within the TCR community and public policy-oriented outlets. Read the article to find out more!

Lastly, in respect to where we hope future research will go: Pick your favorite from a buffet of 169 ‘scholarly appetizers’! The UN SDGs include 17 goals and 169 specific targets aimed at ending poverty, protecting the planet, and ensuring prosperity for all. Given the breadth and diversity of these 169 targets, it is difficult to imagine that there is no topic that any given marketing scholar can meaningfully relate to and engage with. From consumer behavior and health communication to digital inclusion and ethical branding, nearly every target intersects with some of marketing’s core concerns. This expansive relevance offers marketing and consumer scholars an open invitation: choose any one of the 169 targets and explore how marketing knowledge, tools, and methods can advance it. We believe that marketing and consumer researchers have the capacity—and responsibility—to contribute to global progress through their targeted, impactful marketing scholarship related to the UN SDGs."

Mende, Martin, Abhishek Borah, Maura L. Scott, Lisa E. Bolton, and Leonard Lee. "People, peace, prosperity, and the planet: A journey toward sustainable development in consumer research." Journal of Consumer Research 51, no. 1 (2024): 91-103.

With its 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the United Nations (UN) developed 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a “blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet.” This initiative raises the question: how has the Journal of Consumer Research (JCR) shed light on the SDGs? This research analyzes 50 years of consumer research through the lens of the SDG and makes four contributions. First, the authors provide a content analysis of articles in JCR and how it relates to the SDGs over time; they also analyze the Journal of Consumer Psychology (JCP) and Journal of Public Policy & Marketing(JPP&M) with regard to the SDGs. Second, this research reveals where JCR has made progress and achieved impact (via Altmetric) but also identifies gaps in the literature. Thus, the analyses shed light on what research in JCR, JCP, and JPP&M understands (and does not understand) about consumer behavior and points the way to future SDG-oriented research. Finally, based on insights from interviews with thought leaders, sociology of science, UN data dashboards, and an exploratory survey in three countries (the U.S., France, and Singapore), the authors provide recommendations on how the field can (better) incorporate the SDGs in research, teaching, and service.