Professor Folke 0lander celebrates his 70th birthday the 21st of July 2005. With this 'Festschrift', Folke 01ander7s colleagues and collaborators over the years want to honour him and to express their appreciation of his life-long contribution to - search, especially research within the themes reflected in the title of this volume: Consumers, Policy and the Environment. Having established close collaboration with European economic psychology's grand old man, Karl-Erik Warneryd, already during his PhD study, Folke 0lander became an active contributor to the development of economic psychology as a - search field in Europe. When the International Association for Research in E- nomic Psychology (IAREP) was founded in 1982, Folke Olander was present, and he was president of IAREP in 1989- 199 1. Folke 0lander has played an equally - fluential role in European and international consumer policy research. Together with Gerhard Scherhorn and Norbert Reich, he was a founding editor of the Journal of Consumer Policy in 1977, a position he has held until 2005. Folke 0lander has also been very active in Nordic consumer policy and in Nordic consumer research since the 70s. He played a crucial part in the Nordic workshop 'Consumer and - ciety' in 1978 and organized the workshop on 'Road to consumer influence' in Helsinki in 1986. He has been a member of the Nordic Consumer Committee under the Nordic Council of Ministers since 1994.
The role of the consumer has changed from seeking the most satisfaction from goods and services to reconciling consumption with active citizenship, which links consumption to modern social issues such as environmental protection, sound business ethics, and fair working conditions. Understanding consumers -- the way they buy products, the way they relate to questions of environmental importance, and the way they participate in public policy formulation processes -is of vital importance to modern society. In this book, eminent researchers examine contemporary issues related to the field of consumers, policy, and the environment.
