The Imelda Marcos of Green ConsumerismThe Imelda Marcos of Green Consumerism

In recent decades, more and more consumers—referred to as “green consumers”—are willing to incorporate environmentally responsible decisions into their purchasing behaviors. This tendency is particularly notable in the European Union, the USA, and China. From a research perspective, while recent studies on remanufacturing have investigated optimal practices in regard to green consumerism, they have failed to address the flexibility manufacturers are afforded to outsource remanufacturing operations to third parties. In practice, some brand-name manufacturers—such as IBM, Land Rover, and Sun—do indeed outsource their remanufacturing operations. To further our understanding of the implications of differentiated structures for remanufacturing operations under green consumerism, we developed two models: one for a manufacturer undertaking remanufacturing themselves (Model M), and one for a manufacturer outsourcing it to a third-party remanufacturer (Model O). Our results indicate that, for markets with significant green consumerism, Model M tends to result in more remanufactured units and creates higher profitability for the manufacturer. However, under certain conditions, this model may also result in greater harm to the environment due to the comparative excess of manufacturers in the remanufacturing process. This implies that environmental groups and agencies should not only aim to encourage green consumerism, but should also focus their attention on the channel structures for remanufacturing.

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Green Consumption Behaviour as a Social Process

10.26686/wgtn.16999882 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

◽

Stephanie Hooper

Keyword(s):

Social Environment ◽

Behaviour Change ◽

Environmental Issues ◽

Personal Relationships ◽

Environmental Behaviour ◽

Green Consumption ◽

Green Consumerism ◽

Green Consumers ◽

Consumption Behaviour ◽

The Social

<p>In recent years, environmental concern, sustainability and climate change have become widespread political and social issues. The prevalence of environmental issues in the social environment has encouraged the majority of consumers to develop concern for environmental issues, pro-environmental attitudes and an intention to purchase green products and practice green behaviour. However, future growth of green consumerism is threatened by an “attitude-behaviour gap”. Sustainable consumption behaviour is limited to a niche market of “green” consumers, and must expand into more mainstream consumer markets. This study is aimed at exploring how individual perceptions, personal relationships and social experiences shape green consumption behaviour. Its objectives were (1) to achieve a greater understanding of how the social environment influences the green consumption behaviour of individual consumers; and (2) to explore how pro-environmental behaviour change takes place. This study used qualitative methods and adopted an adapted case study methodology. The primary data was collected from semi-structured depth interviews with two participants from seven household cases. Four key insights of this research were: (1) “Green” and “mainstream” (i.e., not-so-green) consumers positively influence the green consumption behaviour of other consumers via social observations, comparisons and “greening strategies”, resulting in pro-environmental behaviour change; (2) “Mainstream” (i.e., not-so-green) consumers view “green” consumers as people who adopt “alternative” green consumption behaviour. A “green syndrome” has developed whereby “green” is viewed as an unattainable goal, limiting mainstream participation in green consumption behaviour; (3) “Green” and “mainstream” (i.e., not-so-green) consumers cope with their non-environmental actions with tradeoff and neutralisation arguments which reinforce the “attitude-behaviour gap” in green consumerism and (4) Personal relationships and household dynamics (i.e., household roles, lifecycle and structure) can affect the adoption and effectiveness of green consumption behaviour practiced within households. Pro-environmental behaviour can be encouraged by explicit green social norms in the social environment, as this reduces the efficacy of neutralisation techniques. Furthermore, the “mainstream” (i.e., not-so-green) population will adopt green products and practices when they are effective, convenient and cost-efficient.</p>

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A Behavioral Economic Analysis of Carbon-Neutral Energy Purchasing

10.31234/osf.io/5mt2x ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Brett Gelino ◽

Derek D Reed

Keyword(s):

Energy Supply ◽

Community Intervention ◽

Predictive Ability ◽

Clean Energy ◽

Group Differences ◽

Behavioral Economic ◽

Green Consumerism ◽

Opt Out ◽

Evaluative Instrument ◽

Ecological Concern

In the described experiments, we probe the ability of a novel operant demand decision making task to detect differences in community-scale “green” consumerism following introduction of choice architectural environmental manipulations. In both experiments, participants are asked to make decisions regarding their enrollment in an environmentally friendly home-energy supply at prices unique to their household experience. In Experiment 1, we assess task baseline performance by examining consistency within generated demand metrics, relation of metrics to existing measures of ecological concern, and metric predictive ability as it pertains to eco-friendly action. Results suggest adequate internal performance and conceptual divergence from existing measures. In Experiment 2, we test the performance of the task as a framework for evaluating scalable choice architectural intervention. In this case, participants indicate their willingness to enroll or remain enrolled, pending an opt-in or opt-out arrangement. Results suggest task sensitivity sufficient to detect group differences in demand: Our opt-out arrangements (i.e., default enrollment) produced significantly greater clean energy purchasing. Overall findings infer viability of our novel task for use as an evaluative instrument in prospective community intervention.

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