Sustainable Consumption Choices Research Articles

Is face and information availability important in green purchasing among young consumers?

With the growing awareness of environmental issues available across various media platforms, consumers, particularly the younger generation, are more conscious of their consumption and its impact on the environment. This trend can be observed in the surging demand for environmentally friendly and animal-test-free products on the market. However, despite the young consumer group’s critical role in the marketplace, existing research in this area remains limited, demanding further investigation. Recognising the significance of this trend, this study employs a two-stage partial least squares structural equation modelling-artificial neural network (PLS-SEM-ANN) approach to analyse the antecedents influencing green consumption among young Chinese consumers. This study proposes a conceptual research model that extends the norm activation model (NAM) by analysing 366 self-reported questionnaires. The first-stage PLS-SEM results reveal significant positive correlations between personal norms (PN), environmental knowledge (EK), information availability (IA), social norms (SN) and green consumption intention (GCI). However, face consciousness (FC) was found to have no significant effect on GCI. The second-stage ANN sensitivity analysis shows that PN emerged as the most influential factor on GCI, followed by IA, SN, and EK. This ranking diverges from the PLS-SEM results, suggesting potential hidden nonlinear relationships between IA, SN, EK and GCI. Among the significant predictors of PN, the ascription of responsibility (AR) ranks first, followed by an awareness of consequence (AC) and SN. With its unique two-stage PLS-SEM-ANN approach to green consumption among young consumers, this study offers valuable insights for both marketers and researchers. Marketers gain a new tool to predict GCI more effectively, while researchers can explore the intricate interplay of factors shaping sustainable consumption choices. Methodologically, the present study is one of the few that applies extended NAM using two-stage PLS-SEM-ANN in the context of green consumption.

The Impact of Global Citizenship Education (GCED) on Consumer Behavior: A Scoping Review on Sustainable Marketing Campaigns for GCED

The pressing need to address global issues, including climate change and social inequality, underscores the significance of cultivating global citizens aware of their responsibilities. Global Citizenship Education (GCED) serves as a crucial educational approach, empowering individuals with the aptitude to responsibly engage with global challenges. This review focuses on the scoping review of finding the effect of GCED on consumer habits, particularly regarding sustainable marketing campaigns crafted for it. Analysis of primary research indicates consumers acquainted with GCED tend to favor environmentally friendly and ethical purchasing. Marketing endeavors embracing GCED concepts tend to be more effective, fostering sustainable consumer choices. This study reveals literature gaps and charts future research avenues, stressing the synergy of educators, marketers, and policymakers for enhancing eco-friendly consumer actions via GCED. This research offers valuable perspectives for enterprises wanting to synchronize their promotional efforts with global sustainability goals and educators aiming to amplify the tangible results of GCED. Keywords: Global Citizenship Education, Consumer Behavior, Scoping Review

Sustainable Fashion in New Era: Exploring Consumer Resilience and Goals in the Post-Pandemic

This study examines the underlying mechanisms that lead to sustainable fashion consumption in the post-COVID-19 pandemic era. Particularly, this study explores the complex relations between resilient coping mechanisms, consumer life goals, and sustainable fashion consumption, combining Goal Content Theory and the Consumer Sustainability Orientation framework. The findings obtained from partial least squares structural equation modeling analysis using 503 responses confirm that resilient coping positively influenced both intrinsic and extrinsic life goals. While intrinsic goals reinforce all aspects of sustainability orientation (ecological, social, and economic), extrinsic goals show a contrasting effect—positively affecting economic orientation but negatively impacting ecological and social dimensions. Among sustainability orientations, the ecological dimension had a significant positive effect on sustainable fashion consumption behavior. The research also reveals that resilient coping directly improves social and economic dimensions of sustainability orientations, but it does not significantly influence ecological orientation. This study offers insight into differentiated marketing communication strategies for retailers depending on consumers’ goals—intrinsic or extrinsic—and implies the importance of the dynamic impact of each dimension of sustainability orientation on consumers’ sustainable fashion consumption choices.

Unraveling the Fallacy of Expertise: Exploring the Influence of Product-Related Experience on Consumer Perception of Product Knowledge

This paper investigates the impact of product-related experience on consumers’ perception of their knowledge about extended warranties for automobiles in Germany and its implications for sustainability. Utilizing a structural equation model and analyzing data from 467 participants, the study explores the influence of general self-confidence and product-related experience on both subjective and objective knowledge. The empirical findings highlight that while high general self-confidence and product-related experience significantly shape participants’ subjective knowledge, they do not have a similar impact on objective knowledge. Notably, previous possession, representing the highest level of product-related experience, emerges as the primary influencing factor on participants’ subjective knowledge. Surprisingly, subjective and objective knowledge does not significantly influence participants’ willingness to pay. The analysis presented in this paper underscores the importance of understanding the distinction between self-perceived knowledge and objective knowledge, particularly concerning extended warranties for automobiles and the need for accurate knowledge dissemination to inform sustainable consumer choices.

Millennial Heterosexual Couples’ Sustainable Consumption Choices: An Exploratory Study into Decision-Making

This research sought to explore the influences and motives that lead to decision-making of, and behavioral changes toward, sustainable consumption in heterosexual married couples. Understanding how different factors affect couples’ consumption decision-making dynamics can help provide successful methods to promote behavior towards sustainable consumption. For this study, semi-structured interviews were employed to explore couples’ sustainable consumption behaviors. A total of six heterosexual couples (12 individual participants) provided in-depth narratives regarding their sustainable consumption and behavioral patterns. Four major themes that emerged include: (1) the meaning of sustainable consumption for the couples and their lack of confidence in their knowledge, (2) shopping decisions regarding sustainable consumption, (3) life events that influenced the couples’ views and behaviors towards sustainable consumption, and (4) the motivations behind sustainable consumption. In spite of the small sample size, the findings of the study can be used by businesses to develop more effective marketing strategies. The study results can help businesses understand heterosexual married couples’ sustainable consumption decision-making processes and persuade them to make decisions about the company’s sustainable product offerings.

Greenwashing in the context of sustainable development and sustainable consumer choices

The article aims to analyse the current debate in the literature regarding the occurrence of the so-called ‘greenwashing’ phenomenon and its significance in the context of sustainable development. The main focus is on presenting the definition as well as the features and forms of this phenomenon, and on showing examples of greenwashing in economic practice based on desk research. Data from the author’s own research were also used to illustrate consumers’ opinions on greenwashing and its consequences in the context of their purchasing choices.

Sustainable consumer choices – critical reflection on hospitality and tourism

PurposeStrategies to promote more sustainable consumer choices have been gaining interest among tourism and hospitality scholars. In particular, behavioral economic theories of decision-making have gained popularity in the past decade, led by behavioral interventions (BIs) such as the nudge movement. This paper aims to present a critical reflection on this recent trend, with a specific focus on whether these BI approaches are an adequate tool to contribute to long-term behavioral changes, one crucial aim of the promotion of sustainable consumption.Design/methodology/approachBased on a critical review of recent significant academic works in the field, this paper reflects on how nudge principles are applied in the hospitality and tourism sectors, as well as the usual justifications given for their use. This paper then discusses the potential limitations, both theoretical and practical, of using these short-term focused approaches to decisions that intend to have long-term outcomes and aims.FindingsBIs in hospitality and tourism have the potential to create long-term sustainable changes through a more comprehensive view of behavioral factors influencing decisions; however, such approaches would need to be strongly embedded in theoretical arguments that question “how” and “why” behavior change could be sustainable in the long term. This paper proposes a conceptual framework to address these concerns for future research.Research limitations/implicationsThis critical reflection proposes a comprehensive framework that will help guide stronger theoretically motivated identification, design and empirical testing of BIs and nudges. Industry can eventually benefit from theoretically stronger interventions that provide a balance between the short-term and long-term influence of BIs to attain customer loyalty and eventually greater value for business stakeholders.Originality/valueThis reflection paper critically reviews the basis of BIs and recommends a framework to strengthen their theoretical arguments. This reflection focuses on the theoretical critique of BIs and nudges to ensure long-term behavior changes are sustainable. The paper also proposes a comprehensive framework that incorporates well-founded theoretical models to enhance BIs and nudge literature.

Gratitude as a systems-wide values-based approach to enhance sustainable consumption choices

What if the best approach to solve climate change were to emphasize an emotion felt by the majority of the population? Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass presents gratitude as a powerful emotion. This article is a deep theoretical exploration of gratitude, largely informed by Indigenous oral histories as presented by Kimmerer. The analysis shows gratitude as having the potential to serve as an emotional (rather than logical) catalyst for change in human consumption behaviours. Also explored is how gratitude can form a cyclical system interwoven with care, gifts, and reciprocity. Environmental activists have been seeking to enact change, largely through a wide-range of education-scoped efforts. Yet change doesn’t happen. This article argues that Indigenous wisdom on the practice and experience of gratitude offers a profoundly more satisfying approach to human relationships; both with nature and other humans. Ultimately gratitude, when more deeply experienced, seems capable of inspiring new programs of actions, education, and efforts to affect highly meaningful and engaging societal transformation towards greater ecological responsibility.

Water Use in Australian Irrigated Agriculture—Sentiments of Twitter Users

The objective of this research was to examine consumer perceptions of water use in key Australian irrigated agriculture industries. Twitter data (‘Tweets’) from 2018 to 2022 related to water use/water footprints by/of the cotton, rice, and dairy industries were analyzed. The results revealed a higher prevalence of negative sentiments towards water use in Australian irrigated dairy, cotton, and rice industries compared to positive sentiments. The cotton industry received the most criticism. Our analysis showed that although the term “water footprint” was not widely used, the volume of water required for the production of irrigated cotton, dairy, and rice, or products derived from these commodities, is being circulated in tweets. However, the study also highlighted the presence of highly variable, incorrect, or outdated water footprint data in these tweets, indicating the unreliability of Twitter as an information source for consumers seeking to make sustainable consumption choices. This research offers valuable insights into consumer sentiments, benefiting stakeholders and policymakers in addressing public concerns and misinformation in the Australian irrigated agriculture sector.

Can a meta sustainability label facilitate more sustainable consumer choices?

AbstractThe current sustainability labeling landscape has been accused of creating unnecessary consumer confusion due to too much, too complex, too similar, and too ambiguous information. Meta‐sustainability labeling is proposed as a solution. We provide the first evidence on the added value of this instrument based on a survey in the USA (N = 518) and Germany (N = 520). Participants were randomly allocated to one of four different conditions: (1) traditional labeling, (2) new, common label design, (3) traditional labeling plus meta label, and (4) new, common label design plus meta label. The study confirms the preference for sustainability‐labeled products in both countries. In the USA, the new, common label design outperforms traditional labeling. Adding a meta label reduced the effect. In Germany, both the common labeling design and the meta label improved the effectiveness of sustainability labeling for some consumer segments. The new designs are built on the branding of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, which makes them practically relevant for global implementation.

‘I’d never cook it now’: an exploration of intergenerational transference and its role in facilitating family food sustainability

PurposeThis paper aims to develop a deeper understanding of what (un)sustainable food behaviours and values are transmitted across generations, to what extent this transference happens and the sustainability challenges resulting from this for individuals and households.Design/methodology/approachA total of 25 semi-structured in-depth interviews are analysed regarding the value of inherited food, family food rituals, habits and traditions, aspects of food production and understanding of sustainability.FindingsIntergenerational transferences are significant in shaping (un)sustainable consumption throughout life, and those passed-on behaviours and values offer opportunities for lifelong sustainable change and food consumption reappraisal in daily life, beyond early years parenting and across diverse households.Research limitations/implicationsParticipants were limited to British families, although the sample drew on multiple ethnic heritages. Future research could study collectivist versus more individualistic cultural influence; explore intergenerational transference of other diverse households, such as multigeneration or in rural and urban locations, or whether sustainable crossover derived from familial socialisation continues into behaviours and values beyond food.Practical implicationsThe findings show the importance of families and intergenerational transference to the embedding of sustainable consumption behaviours. Mundane family life is a critical source of sustainable learning, and marketers should prioritise understanding of the context and relationships that drive sustainable consumer choices. Opportunities for intentional and unintentional sustainable learning exist throughout life, and marketers and policymakers can both disrupt unsustainable and encourage sustainable behaviours with appropriate interventions, such as nostalgic or well-being communications. The paper sheds light on flexible sustainable identities and how ambivalence or accelerated lives can deflect how policy messages are received, preventing sustainable choices.Originality/valueThe findings provide greater understanding about the mechanisms responsible for the sustainable transformation of consumption habits, suggesting intergenerational transferences are significant in shaping (un)sustainable food consumption throughout life. The study shows secondary socialisation can play a critical role in the modification of early behaviour patterns of food socialisation. The authors found individuals replicate food behaviours and values from childhood, but through a process of lifelong learning, can break formative habits, particularly with reverse socialisation influences that prioritise sustainable behaviours.

How Can Feelings of Nostalgia Facilitate Sustainable Consumer Choices?

Keywords: nostalgia nostalgic feeling emotions social connectedness sustainable behavior pro-environmental behavior textual analysis elaboration-likelihood model

Towards credible, evidence-based environmental rating ecolabels for consumer products: A proposed framework

Environmental rating ecolabels are a new generation of ecolabels. They are intended to enable consumers to compare the environmental impacts of multiple products and make more sustainable consumption choices. Falling outside of the three types defined in the ISO 14020 environmental label and declarations series, the recent proliferation of these business-to-consumer communication instruments has resulted in the creation of a plethora of methodologies to derive product performance ratings. Interest from consumers wanting more information on the products they purchase, as well as the promise of policy instruments aiming to increase transparency and combat greenwashing, are fuelling further multiplication of schemes. A move towards more credible, evidence-based environmental rating ecolabels is therefore urgently needed to promote assessment based on scientific understanding, gain consumer trust, and realise policy objectives.We propose a framework based on four core principles - i) relevance, ii) scientific robustness, iii) trust and transparency, and iv) feasibility (scalability, affordability) - with 18 guidelines that can be followed by rating scheme developers. We characterise the rise of environmental rating ecolabels in geographical Europe and build an inventory of 33 existing schemes, at various stages of development and implementation, to which we apply the framework. This reveals the potential for significant improvement in current schemes, indicating important areas for development. The framework provides a valuable guide for the development of new schemes or an evaluation grid for existing initiatives.

Awareness Of Eco-Friendly Products And Their Effect On The Environment: A Survey Based Analysis

Green consumerism is linked to sustainable development or sustainable consumer behaviour. It is a way of living that safeguards the environment for both the current generation and the one to come. It holds consumers accountable or shares accountability for addressing environmental issues through the adoption of environmentally friendly practices, such as the use of organic products, clean energy, and the decision to purchase goods made by businesses with little to no environmental impact. The promotion of sustainable economic growth is anticipated to be fueled by green development. "Green consumerism" is the term used to describe the consumer demand for goods and services that were created in a way that was ecologically friendly, particularly one that involved recycling and safeguarding the planet's resources. Or, to put it another way, green consumerism is the creation, promotion, and usage of goods and services based on their favorable effects on the environment. The two main factors influencing consumers' green purchase behaviour have been identified as their environmental concern and the functional qualities of the products. The primary predictors of consumers’ green purchase behaviour are discussed in the article with the help of data collected and analyzed. In this research study, a total number of 521 usable questionnaires were collected from the respondents around the world and mostly from India. A total of twenty-one questions were asked from the month of February 2023 to April 2023. Data analysis, utilizing the Statistical Package for Social Sciences, highlights the predictors of consumers' green purchase behavior, contributing valuable insights to the understanding of sustainable consumer choices.

Abuse of consumer trust in the digital market and the green market: the case of green washing in the Italian legal system

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to offer some reflection on the abuse of consumer trust and the importance of control of information in the digital market and the green market. The role of the consumer as the arbiter of the market is fundamental. The abuse of consumer confidence depends, in fact, on the spread of stereotyped messages and vague and generic formulas aimed at hiding a dangerous vacuum of protection. In both markets, it is a question of giving the consumer the necessary tools to monitor the transparency of the criteria used by the trader to classify a product according to its characteristics.Design/methodology/approachBased on the analysis of an Italian case law and the European programme, the author shows how in Italy there is a dangerous lack of consumer protection. The problem is that the green consumer, as well as the online consumer, is not able to immediately verify the accuracy of the product requirements and must be able to count on the seriousness of the professional. For this reason, the European and national authorities have provided specific rules for both markets. The new proposal of directive introduces specific rules to target unfair commercial practices that mislead consumers away from sustainable consumption choices and introduced many innovations, such as the ban on greenwashing.FindingsThis work aims to identify the tools necessary to make the information on the products offered in the digital market and those related to green products more reliable but above all to create a common methodology on which to base them. High is the risk that sustainability will become a simple marketing strategy for companies. The difficulty consists in the absence of certain and verifiable parameters by the consumer to really measure the characteristics and the quality of a product characteristic of a product compared to competing ones.Originality/valueThis work examines the problem of consumer protection in the digital and green market from a new perspective, comparing the information asymmetries with respect to the professionals in the two markets. Starting from the cases of greenwashing and analysing new European remedies, the author suggests for both markets, specific answers different from those required for advertising in general. The problem here is not only the truth of the message but also the vagueness and genericity. The consumer must be in a position to control the criteria used by the professional to classify products, both in the green and the digital market. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper is the original work of the author and has not been submitted elsewhere for publication.

How about choosing environmentally friendly beef? Exploring purchase intentions among Italian consumers

Abstract The increasing global demand for livestock products and its large environmental impact ask for urgent policy and managerial strategies. With regard to meat consumption, feasible actions relate to its reduction and orienting consumers toward more sustainable meat choices. The aim of the study is to investigate the determinants affecting meat consumers in their intention to buy beef whose label clearly expresses environmentally friendly characteristics. To do so, we hypothesized to apply an institutional system of ecological labeling on beef products. An extended framework based on the Theory of Planned Behavior was applied to understand the factors affecting the consumer decision-making process toward eco-labeled beef. A survey was conducted with 1139 consumers in Italy. Data were analyzed by means of confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation models. Results highlight that beef consumers are likely to change their habits, in favor of more sustainable beef choices. The analysis highlights that, together with consumer attitudes, social norms and perceived behavioral control, institutional trust and food shopping habits play an important role in activating the consumer's cognitive decision-making process toward more sustainable beef. Results add to the literature on the determinants of green food-choices and introduce new insights on the role of institutional trust in the intention to buy beef labeled with a public standard. Findings highlight that particular attention should be devoted to build trust for public institutions in order to promote sustainable food consumption behavior. Moreover, results validate previous studies on the effectiveness of information-based policies in fostering more sustainable consumption choices.

Narratives of fungal-based materials for a new bioeconomy era

Newly developed fungal-based materials have promising potential with regard to mitigating greenhouse gas emissions and enabling a shift towards a more circular economy. However, an important step towards their success in the bioeconomy is consumers’ acceptance and sustainable consumption of these materials. Highlighting the power of narratives, this paper looks at the symbolic nature of fungi and discusses how common perceptions can be reshaped through narrative structures. We first identify common expectations, hopes and fears of fungi and then focus on how potentially negative beliefs or fears regarding fungal-based materials can be transformed through disseminating and reframing scientific information in a narrative structure. Specifically, we discuss characteristics of a story that can induce changes in attitudes and behaviours among consumers to induce sustainable consumer choices. To adjust and promote these sustainable narratives within the society, we suggest innovative science communication and especially citizen participation formats as adequate tools.

Goal-framing theory for sustainable food behaviour: The added value of a moral goal frame across different contexts

Supporting sustainable consumer choices is critical as consumers show inconsistencies in their sustainable behaviour. Consumers indicate to value the environment but do not consistently behave in a sustainable manner. This article builds upon goal-framing theory to understand and support the consistency of sustainable behaviours across contexts. More specifically, it contributes to the literature by developing a food-specific goal-framing measurement that adds a moral goal frame to the existing gain, hedonic, and normative goal frames (Study 1; N = 1,100; measuring goal frames). Moreover, the results reveal a contrast between the gain and hedonic frames that are currently activated in the included real-life food choice situations (Study 2, N = 1,100; between-subjects design with three real-life food contexts, measuring goal frames, social norms, and intentions) and the moral frame, which is most consistently associated with sustainable behaviours (Study 2 and Study 3 [between-subjects design activating four goal frames, measuring goal frames and sustainable behaviour]). The findings demonstrate the relevance of moral goal frames to enforcing sustainable food transitions, for example by devising means of adapting the food environment to activate consumers’ moral rather than gain and hedonic goal frames.

Testing the impact of overt and covert ordering interventions on sustainable consumption choices: A randomised controlled trial

Food products have significant impacts on the environment over their life cycle. We investigated whether displaying products in ascending order of carbon footprint in an online supermarket environment can shift consumer choices towards more sustainable options. We examined whether the effect of the ordering intervention differs when the ordering is overt (information about the ordering is explicit), compared to when it is covert (participants not told about the ordering). We conducted a three-arm parallel-group randomised trial using 1842 online participants from England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Participants shopped for a meal, choosing one product from each of six product categories in a simulated online supermarket. Six products were listed vertically on each product-category page. Products were randomly ordered for the control arm but ordered by carbon footprint in the covert and overt ordering arms. In the overt ordering arm, a statement was displayed at the top of each product page about the ordering of products. The primary outcome was whether one of the three most sustainable products was chosen in each product category. There was no effect of the covert ordering on the probability of choosing more sustainable products compared with the control arm (OR = 0.97, 95% CI 0.88–1.07, p = 0.533). Furthermore, we did not find evidence that the effects of the covert ordering and overt ordering differed (p = 0.594). Within the control condition, products in different positions were chosen with similar frequencies, suggesting that product positioning does not have an impact on choices. This may explain why re-ordering products had no effect. In the overt condition, only 19.5% of people correctly answered that the products were ordered according to sustainability in a follow-up question, suggesting that they didn't notice the statement. Results suggest that choices for grocery products might be too ingrained to be changed by subtle rearrangements of choice architecture like the ordering interventions, and highlight the difficulty of conveying information effectively to consumers in the online grocery shopping environment.

Iconic 21st Century Activist "T-Shirt and Tote-Bag" Combination Is Hard to Miss These Days!

Iconic 21st Century Activist "T-Shirt and Tote-Bag" Combination Is Hard to Miss These Days!