The implementation of the project “Sustainable Lifestyle: Everyday Practices and Business Initiatives for ‘Green’ Transformation”, carried out by the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, has been successfully completed. The project was implemented with the financial support of the European Union –NextGenerationEU under the Recovery and Resilience Facility, Contract No. PVU-36 of 31.10.2024 /BG-RRP-2.015-0006-C01/.
The main objective of the project was to contribute to a better understanding of the process through which contemporary “sustainable” practices in business and everyday life are socialized, as well as of the interactions and tensions that emerge around them. The qualitative cultural-anthropological study – the key activity within the project, conducted by Dr. Mila Stancheva under the scientific supervision of Prof. Svetla Koleva, D.Sc. – examines the introduction of sustainable practices in business and everyday life as a multidimensional phenomenon. This phenomenon involves the penetration of political and moral questions into the private sphere, the universalization of specific practices and their transformation into normative models, and the increasing moral burden placed on individuals – processes in which the creators of “green” businesses and practitioners of sustainable consumption models play a visible role.
Final event of the project
On 22 May 2026, the final event of the project was held online. During the event, a presentation was delivered summarizing the main results of the fieldwork, the analytical findings and key contributions of the project, as well as the progress achieved with regard to the other planned activities.
The present study builds upon earlier work on the topic by adding a new corpus of empirical data that enables a more nuanced examination of the dynamics through which “sustainable” practices are formed, enacted and contested in business and everyday life. Within the project, 11 semi‑structured interviews and a series of field observations, including in digital environments, were conducted. The resulting material outlines sustainability as a dynamic social category that operates simultaneously as a moral discourse, a market practice and a cultural identity. The newly collected data expand the existing dataset and reveal additional dimensions of social interactions, moral expectations and market logics that shape contemporary understandings of sustainability.
Key findings
The study portrays sustainability as a multilayered social phenomenon in which moral, market and cultural dimensions are closely intertwined. The analysis of the empirical data shows that the “green” lifestyle is often perceived as a ready-made model derived from the official discourse, while at the same time giving rise to new forms of critical reflection and social questioning. Everyday practices – such as recycling, composting or the use of natural cosmetics – acquire symbolic value and become ritualized acts of moral identification. In this context, sustainability operates both as a moral norm and as a market strategy, while entrepreneurship appears as a professionalized extension of a publicly articulated “sustainable” personal ethos.
In contrast to the understanding of responsibilization as a top-down process in which market-oriented morality is embedded in institutional prescriptions that transfer ecological responsibility directly onto the individual (Shamir 2008*), the study identifies a parallel process of burdening with responsibility. This process reveals how ecological engagement spreads through informal social practices and mutual monitoring among citizens. Individuals not only adopt and follow the prescriptions for “proper” behavior, but also actively project them onto others, turning the application or non-application of certain practices into a criterion for individual awareness and responsibility. In this way, eco-conscious markers construct a hierarchy in which “proper” behavior is often defined through consumer models that require various forms of capital: material and time resources, mobility and specific expertise.
Other key results of the project include:
- Enhancing the knowledge, skills and research capacity of the postdoctoral researcher through active two-way knowledge transfer and training, the acquisition and application of new research methods, participation in specialized discussions and collaboration with colleagues from other project teams;
- Presenting the work on the project and the research results through participation in three international scientific forums;
- Preparing a scientific publication.
An essential component of the project was the implementation of various information and publicity activities addressing a wide range of stakeholders: (1) students – through the organization and delivery of a lecture at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”; (2) the academic community, media and the general public – through the postdoctoral researcher’s participation in public discussions, in a round table dedicated to the green transition, in a radio show at the Bulgarian National Radio, as well as through the regular preparation of media materials and publications for the website of the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology. These activities contributed to the dissemination of the results and to the exchange of good practices.
Recommendations
Since the perceptions of sustainability among the studied actors largely correspond to the dominant, institutionally supported understanding, the analysis of this understanding and the resulting conclusions are also relevant to the “green” policies themselves. The project’s findings point to the need for institutional policies for sustainable development to investigate and take into account the real social contexts in which they are implemented, including the significance and potential of existing informal mechanisms of self-regulation. Systematic assessment of the social impact of “green” measures before and during their implementation – including with regard to existing regional specificities – in addition to the dialogue between institutions, citizens and business, which is essential for contemporary policy-making, would contribute to the formulation of informed and context-sensitive policies.
* Shamir, R. 2008. “The age of responsibilization: On market-embedded morality,” Economy and Society, 37(1), 1-19.
This document has been prepared within the framework of the project “Sustainable Lifestyle: Everyday Practices and Business Initiatives for ‘Green’ Transformation”, Contract No. PVU-36 of 31.10.2024 /BG-RRP-2.015-0006-C01/, implemented with the financial support of the European Union – NextGenerationEU. The sole responsibility for the content lies with the researcher, and under no circumstances can it be considered to reflect the official position of the European Union or the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.
