Kapitel 1: What’s a sustainable consumer?

- retail sectors make up a big part of the GNP

- Consumption is an identity-creating activity that contributes to self-fulfillment and is also
governed by emotions

Definition of sustainable consumption and the ”sustainable consumer”

- focused on environmental aspect of sustainability
- Sustainable consumer behavior: actions that result in decreases in adverse environmental impacts
as well as decreased utilization of natural resources across the lifecycle of the product, behavior
or service
- Improves both social and economic conditions

Economically sustainable consumption

- consumers’ expenses must not be greater that their earnings
- Konsumentverket and payday loans
- 1st factor: Households with economically unsustainable level of consumption are less able to
function in a socially sustainable way
- Relates to health or the risk of social marginalization
- 2nd factor: accessibility I.e. disabilities and exclusion from consumption
- Less choice, higher price
- rebound effects: increased consumption in other sectors
- Environmental impact increases although consumption level falls

Environmentally sustainable consumption

- food 25% of CO2
- Housing 30%
- Travel 30%
- Shopping 15%

Socially sustainable consumption

- ethical and fair trade consumption inkl consumers
- Outsourcing
- Leads to poor countries competing against each other with lower wages
- Solution is to spend less time on producing and more on developing

Overlaps and goal conflicts between sustainability dimensions

- product safety - for example ecological perspective included
- Goal conflicts between the sustainability dimensions
- Difficult to identify and calculate net effect

6 main topics considered by the state-of-the-art of research on sustainable consumption

1. Effects of consumption: How does it affect people and the environment?
2. Future visions and scenarios: what’s a sustainable level?
3. Consumer perspective: why do we consume as we do?
4. Production perspectives: how do we design and produce sustainable goods and services?
5. Media, advertising, and retail perspectives: how should sustainability be promoted?
6. Society’s viewpoint: how can policy aims and instruments be shaped to promote more
sustainable production and consumption?

MISTRA’s five research areas on sustainable consumption

1. Sustainable macroeconomics
2. Sustainable consumption, well-being, and the ”good life”
3. Sustainability in supply chains
4. Alternative systems for providing sustainable consumption
5. Policies fostering sustainable consumption

Studies on sustainable customer segmentation

Categorization of customers into 4 different clusters based on satisfaction with, and purchase
intentions toward green products
• The greens
• The yellows
• The oranges
• The reds

As consumers, where can we start to become more sustainable?

- sustainable alternatives concerning choices of food and drinks
- Sustainable alternatives regarding household-related consumption
- Sustainable alternatives regarding travel and transportation

Kapitel 3: Influencing more sustainable consumption

Factors influencing consumption

- cultural factors: emergence of new subcultures interested in sustainability
- Social factors
- Personal factors
- Psychological factors
- Rational explanations: wishing functional benefits
- Psychological explanations: attitudes and beliefs
- Sociological explanations: symbolic meanings
- contextual factors
- Geographic context
- Purchases as context
- Circumstance as context
- Macro context: citizen consumer is motivated by and linked to social solidarity rather than
being an ethically inspired act of individualism

Stages of the purchase decision process

- pre-purchase phase
- Purchase phase
- Post-purchase phase

Stages of the consumption process

- need recognition
- Info search
- Evaluation of alternatives
- Purchase decision process
- Post-purchase behaviors - use and post-use
- FOMO: fear of missing out

2 steps of consumer decision-making model: screening and choice

The attitude-behavior green gap

- the tradeoffs that pro-environmental products often force upon their users: higher prices, lower
quality, and/or reduced performance
- LOHAS: lifestyles of health and sustainability - lack of academic value how people view/value
sustainable features of a product. Explanations:
• Value: value to the traditional one?
• Frequency: we buy what we usually buy without reflecting
• Visibility: unclear that offering is sustainable
• Complexity: more factors to take into account except price and quality < traditional product
• For me or for others
• Necessity or enjoyment: low involvement purchase that happens routinely or high-involvement

Other explanations
• Lack of green products
• Perceived high prices or low willingness to pay
• Low perceived product quality
• Social norms
• Insufficient knowledge or lack of understanding
• Low perceived consumer effectiveness
• Skepticism/lack of trust
• Confusion among labels
• Lack of incentives
• Perceived time (effort)
• Routines and habits

The sustainable purchase perception matrix

How to influence consumers to behave more sustainably

The role of information

• Lack of green info: customers base their choice on price
• Stronger effect of verbal compared to numerical info
• Providing info increases willingness
• Info foster positive beliefs on perceived quality and monetary value of green products

The 6 principles of influence

• The principle of reciprocity: supermarkets offering free samples so that consumers may
reciprocate and buy more
• The principle of likability (or similarity): yes to people we like, attractive people impact us more,
we like people similar to us
• The principle of social proof (consensus): going after what other people think is correct
• The principle of authority
• The principle of consistency
• The principle of scarcity: limitation enhances desirability
• Unity: we relationship

The SHIFT framework

Shifting consumers towards sustainable consumer behaviors is based on the following

psychological factors:

- Social influence - a form of altruism

- Habit information: negative behavior change strategy and positive behavior change strategy
- Individual self
- Feelings and cognition
- Tangibility

Nudging
Aims to improve health, increase welfare and make people happier by improving information and
making it possible for consumers to make good decisions rather than forcing alternatives

Bad options aren’t prohibited; it’s the consumer’s free choice that results in a more environmentally
friendly alternative being selected

Mustn’t be misleading

- conscious or unconscious? Intuitive requires less mental resources

- Technique that prevents or encourages mental deviations?
- Transparent or not? Non-transparent: manipulation
- The social aspect: ”70% of this min your age group save money” - outside the norm
- Should be easy to use
- The aim: acceptance of the nudge is determined here
- Who will benefit? Acceptance more probable if individual benefits rather than society
- Detrimental to freedom of choice?
- The nudge recipient