Are present sustainability assessment approaches capable of promoting sustainable consumption? A cross-section review on information transferring approaches

Abstract

Recent studies show that consumers have increasing concerns about the environmental and social impacts of products within their consumption patterns. Nonetheless, insufficient information makes them unable to conduct sustainable consumption. Indeed, in addition to eco-labels, approaches that have been applied in the industrial engineering area could probably provide the needed information. This study firstly focused on looking for criteria that a proper approach should meet to provide the necessary information for consumers. Five consumer-focused criteria were developed based on the criteria for developing household sustainable consumption (HSC) indicators. Then, this study also scanned a broad range of available approaches and conducted an in-depth exploration of the extent to which these sustainability assessment approaches could meet the criteria. The results showed that current approaches rarely focus on one product that the consumers are facing, and very few approaches include sustainability-related information related to the production process and supply chain of the product even though consumers are generating more demand for this information. Additionally, it is necessary to develop better and simpler patterns of presenting this information. Promising research and policy-making suggestions are summarized in the end. This is an important fundamental study in the research domain of sustainable production and consumption and will help both academic researchers and decision-makers get an overview of current approaches.