How Consumers React to Environmental Information: An Experimental Study

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis study examines the influence of different combinations of environmental product declarations on consumers' perception of product quality, perceived credibility, and willingness to pay, for food products. An experiment involving 321 Canadian consumers indicates that consumers perceive better product quality and a more credible environmental information when there are both elaborated self-declared environmental claims and environmental labeling cues on product packaging. Surprisingly, we also found that, when there are less self-declared environmental claims and no environmental labeling cues, consumers perceive that the information is also relatively credible and is the product of better quality.