Sustainable Value Chain of Industrial Biocomposite Consumption: Influence of COVID-19 and Consumer Behavior

The COVID-19 pandemic has been one of the most unprecedented crises of recent decades with a global effect on society and the economy. It has triggered changes in the behavior and consumption patterns of both final consumer and industrial consumers. The consumption patterns of industrial consumers are also influenced by changes in consumer values, environmental regulations, and technological developments. One of the technological highlights of the last decade is biocomposite materials being increasingly used by the packaging industry. The pandemic has highlighted the problems and challenges of the development of biocomposites to adapt to new market conditions. This study aims to investigate the industrial consumption of biocomposite materials and the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on the main stages of the value chain of sustainable industrial consumption of biocomposites. The research results reveal there is a growing interest in the use of biocomposites. Suppliers and processors of raw materials are being encouraged to optimize and adapt cleaner production processes in the sustainable transition pathway. The study highlights the positive impact of COVID-19 on the feedstock production, raw material processing, and packaging manufacturing stages of the value chain as well as the neutral impact on the product manufacturing stage and negative impact on the retail stage. The companies willing to move toward the sustainable industrial chain have to incorporate economic, environmental, social, stakeholder, volunteer, resilience, and long-term directions within their strategies.

Propensity to Purchase Organic Food

Organic food is becoming popular among today's millennial consumers because of increased awareness of healthy lifestyles. Scholars and practitioners attempt to understand what drives consumers to purchase organic foods toward developing market domination strategies and tactics. Since organic food tends to be more expensive than non-organic, this study aims to analyze the impact of consumer values on their tendency to buy organic food. Consumption values are an important factor that could drive consumer behavior and their preferences for goods or services. Consumption values are defined in terms of the required benefits from the purchase and consumption of the preferred products. Sheth, Newman, and Gross defined consumption values in terms of practical, social, emotional, epistemic, and conditional values.

Bespoke Urban Factory

<p>A change in consumer values has resulted in the traditional factory becoming outdated and out of touch. The ever-changing rapid and exponential development in high-tech manufacturing technologies is enabling humankind to realise products and efficiencies never conceived of until recently. Mass production is a thing of the past. People want options – bespoke products and services with the ease and precision of a well-articulated assembly line. The consumer wants to understand the process, production practises and effects of the choices they make. Since the emergence of the city itself, the public marketplace has been a critical node for urban vitality and liveliness – an assemblage of skilled creative specialists liaising directly with the consumer – where the designer is the maker and the store is the workshop. With the evolution of mass production, this once unified marketplace typology has fragmented and dispersed to where manufacturing no longer lies within the consumer’s grasp. A rich historic urban architecture has been supplanted by a distant scattering of industrial warehouses and faceless high street facades. The emergence of innovative new methods of designing and making has presented an opportunity to once again close the gap between production and the consumer interface. Imagine a new architectural typology – an innovative urban marketplace that bridges the current disparity between production, consumerism and public space. It looks to explore the way in which architecture conveys emerging innovative technologies; the way manufacturing is displayed and perceived; and the relationships it has with those who engage with it. Using a local catalyst site, the research puts forward a solution as a socially and contextually relevant node within the city of Wellington, New Zealand. Architectural ideas are iteratively tested alongside a set of typological strategies – each informing the other. Throughout this process, the research seeks to understand and stitch together the many complex conditions in which to provide an inviting, engaging, public consumer destination. This is a high-tech marketplace of sorts – a new architecture for a new era of industry.</p>

Bespoke Urban Factory

<p>A change in consumer values has resulted in the traditional factory becoming outdated and out of touch. The ever-changing rapid and exponential development in high-tech manufacturing technologies is enabling humankind to realise products and efficiencies never conceived of until recently. Mass production is a thing of the past. People want options – bespoke products and services with the ease and precision of a well-articulated assembly line. The consumer wants to understand the process, production practises and effects of the choices they make. Since the emergence of the city itself, the public marketplace has been a critical node for urban vitality and liveliness – an assemblage of skilled creative specialists liaising directly with the consumer – where the designer is the maker and the store is the workshop. With the evolution of mass production, this once unified marketplace typology has fragmented and dispersed to where manufacturing no longer lies within the consumer’s grasp. A rich historic urban architecture has been supplanted by a distant scattering of industrial warehouses and faceless high street facades. The emergence of innovative new methods of designing and making has presented an opportunity to once again close the gap between production and the consumer interface. Imagine a new architectural typology – an innovative urban marketplace that bridges the current disparity between production, consumerism and public space. It looks to explore the way in which architecture conveys emerging innovative technologies; the way manufacturing is displayed and perceived; and the relationships it has with those who engage with it. Using a local catalyst site, the research puts forward a solution as a socially and contextually relevant node within the city of Wellington, New Zealand. Architectural ideas are iteratively tested alongside a set of typological strategies – each informing the other. Throughout this process, the research seeks to understand and stitch together the many complex conditions in which to provide an inviting, engaging, public consumer destination. This is a high-tech marketplace of sorts – a new architecture for a new era of industry.</p>

The urban brewery

<p>The effects of an increasingly global and mass produced marketplace has led to a change in consumer values. In an attempt to mediate the current marketplace where consumers are beginning to experience exhaustion as their choices continue to increase, the consumer is employing new means of determining value. Value is increasingly being sough by the new consumer beyond the product itself, and includes the consideration of product customisation and honest production practice and promotion. Despite the development of techniques to mediate the current state of the consumption environment, there is a lack of research into how this could be explored through architecture. This thesis argues that architecture can be used to support the changing nature of the consumption environment, through a physical interpretation of the social needs of the new consumer. A reassessment of the environment designed for consumption is necessary, in order to physically facilitate the increase of consumer awareness of consumption habits and the effects of their given choices. The layout of this research is broken into two main bodies of work. Part one focuses on the architectural proposition through an analysis of literature, whilst part two explores the fundamental facets of the design solution. The new consumer addressed within the literature and alongside the case study and site analysis is translated spatially, throughout this design led research. The architectural application of new consumer ideals within a consumption program has resulted in the design - The Urban Brewery. The brewery program showcases the potentials for social values to be transformed into a spatial dialogue. Successful facilitation of the new consumer is sought through increased engagement between people, product and program. This thesis concludes that architectural integration of social values and spatial organisation is important to the construction of the future consumption environment.</p>

The urban brewery

<p>The effects of an increasingly global and mass produced marketplace has led to a change in consumer values. In an attempt to mediate the current marketplace where consumers are beginning to experience exhaustion as their choices continue to increase, the consumer is employing new means of determining value. Value is increasingly being sough by the new consumer beyond the product itself, and includes the consideration of product customisation and honest production practice and promotion. Despite the development of techniques to mediate the current state of the consumption environment, there is a lack of research into how this could be explored through architecture. This thesis argues that architecture can be used to support the changing nature of the consumption environment, through a physical interpretation of the social needs of the new consumer. A reassessment of the environment designed for consumption is necessary, in order to physically facilitate the increase of consumer awareness of consumption habits and the effects of their given choices. The layout of this research is broken into two main bodies of work. Part one focuses on the architectural proposition through an analysis of literature, whilst part two explores the fundamental facets of the design solution. The new consumer addressed within the literature and alongside the case study and site analysis is translated spatially, throughout this design led research. The architectural application of new consumer ideals within a consumption program has resulted in the design - The Urban Brewery. The brewery program showcases the potentials for social values to be transformed into a spatial dialogue. Successful facilitation of the new consumer is sought through increased engagement between people, product and program. This thesis concludes that architectural integration of social values and spatial organisation is important to the construction of the future consumption environment.</p>

Consumer values, online purchase behaviour and the fashion industry: an emerging market context

PurposeThis study examines consumer online purchase behaviour in the Nigerian fashion industry.Design/methodology/approachA cross-sectional study was conducted with a total useable sample size of 241 respondents contacted through on-site visitation. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to test the influence of customer value on online purchase behaviour in the fashion industry.FindingsConsumer values are categorised into terminal (happiness, love and satisfaction) and instrumental (time-saving, price-saving discount, service convenience and merchandise assortment) values. The findings show that both values have significant influence on online consumer purchase behaviour, while fashion consciousness moderates the relationship between consumer values and online purchase behaviour.Practical implicationsOnline fashion retailers should focus on increasing the terminal and instrumental values of their products and making available goods that meet the needs of different generational cohorts in society.Originality/valueStudies have examined various factors, for example, consumer values that are determinants of consumer online purchase in the fashion industry; however, there has been limited focus on the nature of fashion and online purchasing in emerging markets, particularly those in Sub-Saharan Africa.