The Board of the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research (Mistra) decided in October 2015 that a proposal for a funding application call in the research area of “sustainable consumption” should be drawn up. A committee of four international senior researchers in the field, Lucia A. Reisch, Maurie J. Cohen, John B. Thøgersen and Arnold Tukker, were commissioned by Mistra in order to analyse the current state of the art of research and of society’s knowledge needs regarding sustainable consumption.