Green Consumption

EG35CH08-Peattie ARI 13 September 2010 20:52

Green Consumption:Behavior and NormsKen PeattieThe Center for Business Relationships, Accountability, Sustainability and Society, CardiffUniversity, Cardiff, Wales CF10 3AT, United Kingdom; email: [email protected]

Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour. 2010. 35:195–228

First published online as a Review in Advance onAugust 13, 2010

The Annual Review of Environment and Resourcesis online at environ.annualreviews.org

This article’s doi:10.1146/annurev-environ-032609-094328

Copyright c© 2010 by Annual Reviews.All rights reserved

1543-5938/10/1121-0195$20.00

Key Words

consumption processes, proenvironmental behaviors, sustainablemarketing

Abstract

Developing more environmentally sustainable consumption and pro-duction systems depends upon consumers’ willingness to engage in“greener” consumption behaviors. Research efforts have sought to iden-tify, analyze, and understand the “green consumer.” Initial marketingand economics research, focusing on purchasing activities, has beencomplemented by research from fields such as industrial ecology andsociology, providing a more holistic picture of green consumption asa process. Much of the research has focused on areas with the greatestenvironmental impacts, namely peoples’ homes and household manage-ment, their food choices and behaviors, and their transport behaviors forwork, leisure, and travel. The emerging picture of green consumption isof a process that is strongly influenced by consumer values, norms, andhabits, yet is highly complex, diverse, and context dependent. There areopportunities for future research that provides greater interdisciplinar-ity and challenges our assumptions and expectations about consumptionand the nature of the consumer society.

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Contents

1. INTRODUCTION: GREENCONSUMPTION INCONTEXT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196

2. FOUNDATIONS ANDSCOPE OF GREENCONSUMPTIONRESEARCH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

3. GREEN CONSUMPTION:A PROCESS PERSPECTIVE . 1993.1. Recognition of a Want or

Need . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2003.2. Information Search . . . . . . . . 2003.3. Evaluation of Alternatives. . 2013.4. Purchase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2013.5. Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2013.6. Postuse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202

4. THE ENVIRONMENTALAND RESOURCE IMPACTSOF PRIVATECONSUMPTION . . . . . . . . . . . . 2024.1. Measuring Collective

Consumption Impacts . . . . . . 2024.2. Measuring Household

Impacts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2034.3. Measuring Product

Impacts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2034.4. Food and Drink Impacts . . . 2044.5. Home Management

Impacts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2044.6. Transport Impacts . . . . . . . . 205

5. UNDERSTANDING GREENCONSUMPTIONBEHAVIOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2055.1. Economic Rationality . . . . . 2055.2. Demographics . . . . . . . . . . . . 2065.3. Impact-Income-Spending

Relationships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2065.4. Environmental

Knowledge. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206

5.5. Attitudes, Beliefs, andValues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207

5.6. Responsibility, Control,and Personal Effectiveness . . 208

5.7. Lifestyles and Habits . . . . . . 2085.8. Green Consumer Identities

and Personalities . . . . . . . . . . . 2095.9. Consumption Context . . . . . 2095.10. Spatial Dimensions . . . . . . . 2105.11. Consumption as a Social

Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2105.12. Social Norms about

the Environment . . . . . . . . . . . 2115.13. The Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212

6. ANALYZING GREENCONSUMPTION . . . . . . . . . . . . 2126.1. Segmenting Green

Markets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2126.2. Modeling Green

Consumer Behavior . . . . . . . . 2126.3. Behavioral Catalysts

and Spillovers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2136.4. The Attitude-Behavior

Gap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2136.5. Complexity and

Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2147. MOTIVATING GREEN

CONSUMPTIONBEHAVIOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2157.1. Green Labeling . . . . . . . . . . . 2157.2. Choice Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . 2157.3. Social Marketing . . . . . . . . . . 2157.4. Collective Action and

Activism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2167.5. Alternative Consumption

Communities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2167.6. Integrating Production

and Consumption . . . . . . . . . . 2178. CONCLUSIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217

1. INTRODUCTION: GREENCONSUMPTION IN CONTEXT

Unsustainable levels and types of consumptionare at the heart of the sustainable development

challenge (1). Environmental technologies,production systems, economic policies, and so-cial initiatives will all play important roles in thepursuit of sustainability, but their contribution

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will be undermined without changes in our con-sumption patterns and behaviors. The notion ofgreen consumption has emerged as a focus forpolicy makers and marketing strategies, and asa subject for research.

In an earlier Annual Review of Environmentand Resources volume, Lebel & Lorek (2) ex-plored the importance of considering consump-tion and production as a holistic system in whichboth the actions of, and interactions between,consumers and producers determine environ-mental impacts. The key mechanisms they pro-pose to develop more sustainable production-consumption systems include responsiblepurchasing, certification and labeling,resource-efficient strategies based on product-service substitutions, codesign strategies, andfrugal resource usage. All of these dependstrongly on consumers’ willingness and abilityto contribute through changing their behavior.Behavioral research indicates that this can bea significant challenge in practice, which thisreview seeks to explore further.

Green consumption is a problematicconcept, not least because it is an apparentoxymoron. Green implies the conservation ofenvironmental resources, while consumptiongenerally involves their destruction. Greenconsumption is also contested as an idea, highlycontext dependent as a set of practices, as wellas complex and multifaceted in both theory andpractice (3). It overlaps other concepts, such asethical, sustainable, or responsible consump-tion, leading to a lack of clarity and consistencyin notions of green consumption within theresearch literature. Green might be assumedto relate only to environmental issues, butthese are subtly intertwined with the social andeconomic strands of sustainable development.For example, Fair Trade coffee is considered anarchetypal socially motivated purchase, yet FairTrade standards also cover protecting environ-mental resources and biodiversity. Similarly,organic food purchasing might be assumedto represent ecologically motivated greenconsumption, yet consumers also perceive itas offering taste or personal health benefits(4).

Instead of wrestling with such distinctionsthis review uses green more broadly as short-hand for “oriented toward sustainable devel-opment.” This reflects the United NationsEnvironment Programme’s conception of sus-tainable consumption as comprising

. . . a number of key issues, such as meetingneeds, enhancing quality of life, improving ef-ficiency, minimising waste, taking a life cycleperspective and taking into account the equitydimension, for both current and future gen-erations, while continually reducing environ-mental damage and the risk to human health(5).

It does, however, focus mostly on environmen-tal aspects of sustainability to reflect the natureand readership of the Annual Review of Environ-ment and Resources.

2. FOUNDATIONS AND SCOPEOF GREEN CONSUMPTIONRESEARCH

Notions of ethical consumption and frugalitycan be traced back through previous centuries,but an explicit concept of green consumptionfirst appeared in the 1970s, primarily inthe United States, as “societal marketing”expanded to include environmental issues.Green consumption emerged in marketingscholarship through Fisk’s Theory of ResponsibleConsumption (6), Henion & Kinnear’s conceptof Ecological Marketing (7), and Kardash’s notionof the “Ecologically Concerned Consumer”(8). Initially, research focused on energy useand pollution issues relevant to a narrow rangeof industries, including automobiles, oil, andchemicals. Consumption behaviors consideredfocused mainly on recycling and energy saving,as well as on consumer responses to advertisingand labeling information (7, 9).

During the 1980s, environmental concernreignited in response to high-profile incidents,such as the Exxon Valdez oil spill, and to mount-ing evidence of environmental degradation.Growing consumer interest in the environment

www.annualreviews.org • Green Consumption 197

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Proenvironmentalbehaviors (PEBs):purchase choice,product use andpostuse, householdmanagement,collective, andconsumer activismbehaviors, reflectingsome degree ofenvironment-relatedmotivation

Dominant socialparadigm (DSP):reflects the core values,perspectives, andpolitical, economic,and technologicalinstitutions, whichdetermine the qualityof life and itsrelationship to theenvironment

was demonstrated by market research data ofthe time, the success of green consumer guides,and the global consumer boycott of chloroflu-orocarbon (CFC)-driven aerosols. Green con-sumer behavior came to be recognized as a com-mercial opportunity for an expanding range ofbusinesses (10) and developed further as a fieldfor research (7). Early efforts to profile greenconsumers and understand the link betweentheir attitudes and behaviors evolved into moresophisticated attempts to understand their mo-tivations and psychology and the role played byinstitutional factors (9, 10).

Much early research was hampered by anumber of weaknesses in attempts to measureconsumers’ green concerns, including view-ing environmental behavior as something con-sumers either did or did not engage in ratherthan a question of degree; a tendency to focus onbroad environmental concern rather than spe-cific issues, which may be more closely linkedto specific behaviors; and failing to properly ac-count for social desirability biases in consumerresponses (11, 12). Although these limitationshave been regularly commented on, they havetended to persist.

Green consumption research can be subdi-vided in several ways. One rough subdivisionis between studies rooted in marketing, whichexamine the intentions and behavior of theconsumer (3, 9), and those rooted in indus-trial ecology or ecological economics, whichexamine the environmental outcomes of thosebehaviors (13, 14). The former often concernbehaviors assumed to be environmentally ben-eficial because they reflect proenvironmentalmotivations or intentions. Purchasing localfood or taking waste to a recycling collectionpoint are examples of archetypal proenviron-mental behaviors (PEBs) whose environmentalbenefits have been challenged. Speirs &Tucker (15) suggest that consumers driving torecycling “bring sites” may expend sufficientenergy to outweigh the energy and materialsavings benefits involved. Similarly, the envi-ronmental merits of local food in practice arecomplex and dependent on production factors,such as production methods, soil types, energy

inputs, as well as distance traveled to market(16, 17).

Conversely, some behaviors withoutenvironmental motivations still representlower-impact consumption behaviors. Adopt-ing a vegetarian diet might reflect religiousconviction or be motivated by concerns aboutpersonal health or economic savings, but it willalso have benefits linked to the environmentand to climate change in particular (18). Thepotential disconnect between the motivationsfor and environmental impacts of green con-sumption behaviors is considerable, but theresearch literature rarely recognizes this.

Another key subdivision is between researchconsidering the level of material consumption(i.e., consumption reduction) and researchconcerning choices between technologies,products, and brands. The focus of policymakers, businesses, and researchers has mostlybeen on the latter (consuming differently), withrelatively little attention paid to consumingless (19). This reflects the perceived incom-patibility between consumption reduction andestablished public policy goals, cultural values,and corporate strategies that prioritize themaintenance of economic growth, consumersovereignty, and the uninhibited acquisitionof material possessions (20). This has led toan overemphasis on uncontroversial behaviorssuch as energy saving and waste reduction,which do not impact affluence or significantlychallenge the norms and lifestyles of the pop-ulace (21, 22). Critics of green consumerismargue this only superficially tackles currentenvironment and resource-based challengesbecause it does not confront the dominant so-cial paradigm (DSP) and consumerist lifestyleswithin industrialized countries (23). Instead, itmay perpetuate the process of overconsump-tion by reducing consumers’ guilt becausethey feel they are taking some proenvironmentaction (24, 25).

One strand of research, which seeks to bal-ance the pressing ecological need to reduce thecollective environmental impacts of consump-tion behaviors with the perceived political chal-lenge of asking people to consume less, is the

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“dematerialization” agenda. This argues that,through technological innovation and bettermanagement of resources, it should be possi-ble to deliver the same level of benefits to con-sumers with a reduced intensity of material andenergy inputs. This has mostly been conceivedas a production agenda, particularly in terms ofreducing the energy intensity of agriculture orreducing the materials consumed in the packag-ing of products. However, it is also a consump-tion behavior agenda. In part, this reflects thetype of resource-efficient product-service sub-stitutions that Lebel & Lorek (2) propose asone strategy for developing more sustainableproduction-consumption systems. Waggoner& Ausubel (26) take this logic further by sug-gesting that the dematerialization agenda has arole for consumers to reduce the material in-tensity of their consumption behavior, as wellas for producers to reduce the impact intensityof their goods.

Moving global consumption toward a moresustainable state therefore depends on a vari-ety of aspects of consumer behavior, includingthe willingness to reduce some aspects of con-sumption, to engage in some goods-to-servicessubstitutions, to reduce the material and energyintensity of some consumption behaviors, andto differentiate in favor of more ecologicallyefficient producers.

The scope of research into green con-sumption has also continued to expandgeographically, reflecting the globalizationof environmental concern. Early researchand practice was focused mostly on the ma-ture industrialized consumer economies ofEurope, North America, and Japan (27), withnot as much focusing on consumers fromless-industrialized countries (28–30). Althoughthere are some multicountry academic stud-ies, they are more frequently conducted bycommercial market research companies. Oneexample is the 2008 Synnovate/BBC WorldNews Climate Change Survey covering 18,453respondents throughout 22 countries rangingfrom the United States and United Kingdomto China, India, Japan, Denmark, Russia, andBrazil (31). This registered a sharp increase in

both environmental concerns and consumptionbehavior changes in responses compared to2007. Unexpectedly, among consumers ex-pressing some concern about climate change,the proportion who could remember buyingan explicitly green product was highest inChina at 76%, which compares to a globalaverage of 54%, and results from traditionallyconcerned countries, e.g., Germany, Denmark,and Norway, clustered around 67–68%.

Comparative academic research in greenconsumer behavior more usually compares con-sumer responses across a small number of coun-tries, particularly contrasting more and lesswealthy countries (29, 32). Although such stud-ies reveal differences between particular coun-tries and cultures in consumers’ specific en-vironmental concerns and responses to them,what is more striking are the similarities ingrowing environmental values and concernsand the interest in green consumption.

3. GREEN CONSUMPTION:A PROCESS PERSPECTIVE

Consumption is an economic, a physical, anda social process influenced by the nature, cir-cumstances, and psychology of individuals andthe geography, culture, laws, politics, and in-frastructure of the society in which they live(32, 33). Understanding it fully therefore re-quires contributions from a wide range ofsocial and physical science disciplines (34).Arguably, the most strongly developed strandsin green consumption scholarship come fromeconomics and marketing, which has led toan overemphasis on rational decision-makingprocesses (35) and on the specific activity ofpurchasing (which is of most interest econom-ically). A fuller understanding also requires asocial, cultural, and physical perspective, whichenvisages consumption as a holistic process.Sociological and anthropological research con-sidering consumption has yet to strongly in-tegrate with the literature on sustainability toproperly complement the economically basedbody of research (35).


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Green consumption behavior involves someform of PEB in one or more of the followingstages of the consumption process:

3.1. Recognition of a Want or Need

People have basic and intrinsic needs for food,drink, clothing, security, and shelter as well asto reproduce and nurture their children. In thecontext of consumer economies, Shove artic-ulates these needs as having evolved into thepursuit of “Comfort, Cleanliness and Conve-nience” (36). Beyond this, we have social andemotional needs for acceptance, status, amuse-ment, love, and self-fulfilment. These broadneeds are translated into more specific wants,reflecting the nature of the individual, the per-son’s lifestyle, and the society within which theylive. These wants are what marketers seek totranslate into a demand for particular products.

There is surprisingly little effort made inthe research literature to separate wants fromneeds (37). This reflects the problem that, be-yond the physiological basics, what constitutesa necessity is relative, subjective, and reflectsa person’s experience, expectations, and cir-cumstances. These needs have also tended toevolve over time so that yesterday’s luxuries be-come tomorrow’s necessities. However, thereare signs that this trend may be reversing. A2009 Pew Research Center study found thatin the “post crunch” economy, the number ofAmericans citing cable TV, air conditioning, adishwasher, or a microwave oven as necessitieshad all dropped sharply since 2006, reversingprevious growth trends (38).

Within a global economy consuming en-vironmental resources at unsustainable levels,with persistently high levels of global poverty,malnutrition, and water shortage, sustainabil-ity concerns will inevitably require more em-phasis on the basic consumption needs of theglobal poor rather than satisfying consumerwants in rich countries (39). As Jackson et al.(37) note, from a research perspective, this re-quires a clearer and more nuanced understand-ing of what constitutes a want as compared to aneed.

Green consumption research has largelyconsidered the consumption levels, choices, andbehaviors of consumers within relatively afflu-ent economies (27) or the emerging consumerclasses within industrializing economies. Lessattention has been given to meeting the ba-sic needs of those living outside the consumerclasses. This is mostly treated as a facet of de-velopment economics, but emerging researchinto “base of the pyramid” production and con-sumption is beginning to explore this further(40). Globally, those living on a few dollars perday represent 72% of the population, and aconsumer market worth $5 trillion. They re-ceive relatively little attention in the researchinto both general and green consumption. Ul-timately, the sustainability agenda cannot beunderstood or progressed without putting un-sustainable consumption in affluent economiesinto the context of global equity. As Lebel &Lorek note, green consumption is not simplyabout consuming less and differently for all;it involves “increasing wisely” for others (2,p. 263).

3.2. Information Search

Although we may consume some products ha-bitually or impulsively, information is oftengathered from family, friends, and commercialsources. Green consumers may seek out specificinformation related to the environmental per-formance of companies and products, and con-sult distinctive sources such as green consumerguides or Web sites. McDonald and colleagues(41) studying the behavior of green consumersacross a variety of purchase types found theytypically engaged in extended prepurchase re-search on socioenvironmental criteria but thatsearch behavior and sources consulted variedacross purchase types.

From a green consumption perspective, akey informational issue is ecological literacy,the degree to which consumers understand en-vironmental issues and their ability to make therelevant connections between their lives andthe products they consume and environmental

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issues that they are aware of and concernedabout (42).

3.3. Evaluation of Alternatives

Choice is fundamental to consumer behaviorand implies a process of evaluating and choosingbetween alternatives. Green consumer market-ing research has emphasized understanding be-havior in order to influence consumer choicesbetween competing products and brands (andpossibly retailers), reflecting the managerialistnature of this research stream (9). Green con-sumer behavior can also include the evaluationof a wider set of alternatives, including con-scious choices to reduce consumption (43) or tofind alternative ways to satisfy their wants. Thiscould involve substituting an intangible servicefor a tangible product purchase (2, 44) or meet-ing needs in ways that do not involve a purchase(such as borrowing an item from friends or fam-ily). Although the phenomenon of work withinthe “informal economy” is widely researched,self-reliant informal consumption activities in-volving nonpurchase activities and how they re-late to purchase-based consumption are not.

The alternatives considered and criteriaused by green consumers form an importantresearch topic. Green product choices are un-usual in that the means of production can betranslated into a product attribute, for example,organic food products or sustainably sourcedwood products (4, 45). An important influencewithin the process of evaluating alternatives isthe level of trust or skepticism consumers placein the claims made in relation to products bycompanies and also those made by environmen-talists (46, 47). The challenge for the promotionof greener alternatives is that consumers tend toput greater trust in familiar products and brandsthan in new environmentally oriented alterna-tives (48).

3.4. Purchase

Green consumer research frequently focuseson either actual purchases or purchase in-tentions and sometimes will consider both in

terms of measuring any gap between them(2, 3, 49). The method of purchase can alsoinfluence environmental impacts. An onlinemusic download has a different set of embeddedenvironmental impacts from a physical copy oncompact disc (CD) (50). It is also worth notingthat shopping is itself a significant activity,both socially and in terms of environmentalimpacts, particularly in an era in which retailinghas become dominated by large out-of-townretailers in many industrialized economies. Forexample, in 2006, the average Briton made 219shopping trips, involving 91 car journeys withan average distance of 9 km (51).

3.5. Use

Conventional marketing and economic schol-arship pays little attention to postpurchaseconsumption behaviors beyond those factorsdetermining repeat purchases. For many prod-ucts, total environmental impacts depend onpostpurchase consumption behavior and prod-uct use. For energy-using appliances, the usephase generates more environmental impactsthan either production or ultimate disposal (52).In the case of low-energy buildings, their envi-ronmental performance depends upon whetherbuilding users interact as predicted with thebuilding’s energy management systems (53).Whether cars or heating systems are properlymaintained, whether electrical equipment is lefton standby, the speed at which cars are driven,and whether broken products are repaired willall influence ultimate environmental impacts.Returning to the purchased music example, afull comparison between a downloaded MP3and store-bought CD also depends on the num-ber of listenings and the comparative energyefficiency of the equipment used (54). Theduration of use is also significant, and con-sumer behavior in terms of promoting prod-uct longevity and resource-efficient “slow con-sumption” is emerging as a new research theme(55, 56).

Despite the significance of product use, itremains underresearched compared to productevaluation, choice, and purchase. Partly, this


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reflects the complexity of researching a behav-ior that is highly influenced by the domesticcontext of the consumer and that for durableproducts may unfold over many years. Under-standing the use phase of consumption requiresmore longitudinal approaches to research andmore ethnographic methods that seek to ob-serve and understand the contexts of consump-tion. This is a more time-consuming, complex,and expensive approach than the applicationof quantitative survey methodologies into con-sumer preferences, which has so far dominatedgreen consumption research.

3.6. Postuse

After use, a product may be discarded (eitherinto landfill or into systems that will reuse, recy-cle, or remanufacture it), stored, resold, traded,or loaned/given to others, either directly orthrough alternative channels, such as charity re-tailers (57). Postuse aspects of consumer behav-ior are relatively neglected within the researchliterature, and the research that does exist hasmostly focused on recycling attitudes, behav-iors, and motivations (9, 58).

Extended producer responsibility regula-tions require companies in some markets, suchas cars and electronics, to reclaim and deal withpostuse products. This creates novel consumerbehaviors relating to their willingness andability to support reverse-logistics processesdeveloped to reclaim postuse products forreuse, recycling, or responsible disposal (59).Compliance on the part of consumers is im-portant to ensure that take-back systems workeffectively, but this represents another under-researched aspect of green consumer behavior.

Although environmental impacts in the useand postuse stages are typically associated withdurable products, such as cars and electrical ap-pliances, they are also relevant in consumableproducts, such as food. For example, the im-pacts of foodstuffs depend on how long food isrefrigerated and at what temperature, whetherit is cooked using a microwave or a conventionalcooker, and whether any waste is generated (andif so, what is done with it).

4. THE ENVIRONMENTAL ANDRESOURCE IMPACTS OFPRIVATE CONSUMPTION

The environmental impacts of consumption re-flect the sustainability of the total system of pro-duction and consumption (2) and the cradle-to-grave life cycle of products (14, 60). Althoughgreen consumption research mostly considersthe behaviors of consumers as individuals, thecollective impact of their choices is importantboth environmentally and as a driver of corpo-rate strategies and producer choices (61). Ul-timately, it is misleading to describe the singleact of purchasing one particular product ratherthan another as more or less green. To take theexample of a car, its environmental impacts willreflect its technical specifications; how it is pro-duced; how far, fast, and smoothly it is driven;how well it is maintained; how long it is kept inservice; and the fate of its component parts atthe end of its life (62).

Consumption impact research includesstudies assessing the impacts of particular prod-ucts (63–65) and those that seek to evaluate thecollective consumption impacts of individuals,households, or countries (66, 67). Research inenvironmental science, ecological economics,and law has sought to evaluate these impactsaccording to the monetary costs of remediationor loss; the physical quantities of resources used,or waste or pollution produced; and the burdenthey place on environmental resources (64).

4.1. Measuring CollectiveConsumption Impacts

Measuring consumption impacts is challengingand depends on what types of impact are in-cluded, the relative weights attached to them,and how they are allocated. Spangenberg &Lorek (68) highlight several problems with theexisting research base including

• a tendency to simplify consumption deci-sions down to single motivations,

• a tendency to use single measures (suchas energy use),

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• problems in disentangling impacts re-lated to product use that are under theconsumer’s control from those that aredetermined by the product designer, and

• variations in calculating impacts perhousehold or per household member.

Seven of the leading approaches fromaround the world were compared and reviewedin the MacGillivray & Levett-Therivel reporton “Consumer Expenditure and Environ-mental Impact” (69). Among those mostfavored was ecological footprint analysis(or eco-footprinting) pioneered by Rees &Wackernagel (66) in the 1990s. An ecolog-ical footprint is an aggregated indicator ofthe impacts of consumption by a definedpopulation. Initially it was applied to cities,regions, or nations, but it has been extendedto households, organizations, events, andproducts (62, 67, 68). A footprint is expressedusing a standardized unit of land area needed tosupport resource consumption, equivalent toa world average productive hectare or “globalhectare” (gha), and is usually expressed inglobal hectares per person (gha/cap).

The total land area is compared with thepopulation of the study area to estimate theeco-footprint, which is then compared to a“fair earth share,” estimated at 2.1 hectaresper person (69). This allows for calculations ofthe extent to which countries, regions, or hu-mankind collectively are engaged in “ecologi-cal overshoot” through overconsumption. Esti-mates put humankind’s collective overshoot inthe region of 30% (70). However, some havecriticized eco-footprinting for a failure to in-clude some types of environmental impacts,such as loss of biodiversity or impact on the bio-capacity of the oceans, and argue that the totalovershoot is greater (71). Despite some con-troversy over methodolgies, footprinting re-mains popular because it provides a simple mea-sure that can be easily communicated. Sutcliffeand colleagues (72) found that communicatingtheir eco-footprint to consumers could encour-age them to try to reduce it. It also allows formeaningful international comparisons of the

Ecological footprint:a unit ofenvironmental impact,expressed as the globalland area required tosupport the resourcesand assimilate thewaste of consumption

collective impacts of consumers across differentcountries. The 2008 Living Planet Report (70)showed that the average American consumerused ∼9.5 gha, compared to a more sustainable(but rapidly growing) 2.1 gha for the averageChinese consumer.

4.2. Measuring Household Impacts

The importance of understanding the total en-vironmental impacts of household consump-tion, rather than of individual purchases, isleading to new research concepts such as“household metabolism.” This view of the totalflow of energy and materials through house-holds owes more to industrial ecology thanconventional consumer behavior research andwas used in trials across five Swedish citiesby Carlsson-Kanyama and colleagues (67).Combining such comprehensive approaches tomeasuring environmental impacts with morelongitudinal and ethnographic studies into con-sumption behaviors presents opportunities fora far more sophisticated approach to green con-sumption research in the future.

4.3. Measuring Product Impacts

The majority of consumption impacts relate toonly a small number of product categories. TheEuropean Environmental Impact of Products(EIPRO) project rigorously analyzed the re-search base on the environmental impacts ofconsumer products (65). The project’s input-output-based methodology assessed 255 do-mestic product types against a range of impactsincluding pollution, human and environmentalhealth risks, and greenhouse gas emissions. Itconcluded that 70–80% of total impacts fromdomestic consumption relate to

• food and drink;• housing (including construction and

maintenance impacts, and domesticenergy use); and

• transport (including commuting, andleisure and holiday travel).

The remaining impacts are mostly fromwater use, domestic equipment (appliances,


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computers, and home entertainment), furni-ture, clothing, and shoes.

Although the EIPRO project excluded re-source usage, contributions to landfill waste,and biodiversity impacts, other research hasidentified a similar list of key products/sectors(64, 65). Spangenberg & Lorek’s (68) Germanstudy sought to identify the “activity clusterscomprising resource consumption” with themost impact. They also concluded that con-struction and housing, food and nutrition, andtransport and mobility were the most crucialclusters, accounting for 70% of material extrac-tion and energy use and more than 90% of landuse.

Product life cycle assessment (LCA)research forms the backbone of our under-standing of product impacts (60). However, theproduct focus of LCA excludes certain resourceconsumption impacts linked to marketing andretail activities and the search and purchasingactivities of consumers. A weakness of LCAresearch is a tendency to provide a muchclearer analysis of the standardized “upstream”impacts generated by production than forthe “downstream” impacts generated by con-sumers’ use and postuse behaviors. These arelikely to be more heterogeneous and difficultto measure accurately. Impact-related researchalso generally focuses more clearly on directprocess-based impacts, such as energy andresource use or the generation of pollution andwaste, than with more indirect consequences,such as biodiversity loss, soil erosion, orchanges to ecosystem dynamics.

4.4. Food and Drink Impacts

Food and drink consumption has a significanteco-footprint through its consumption of land,energy, and chemicals and also through itsconsumption, and pollution, of water (16, 27).These reflect producer decisions, which, al-though influenced by demand, will also reflectagricultural subsidies, farming traditions, cli-mate, and topography. However, collectively,consumer choice can influence food produc-tion, for example, through consumers adopting

a diet with a reduced meat and dairy content(73). Foods vary significantly in embeddedgreenhouse gases, for example, with a study of20 foodstuffs sold in Sweden ranging from 0.4to 30 kg of CO2 equivalents per kg of edibleproduct (74). In some markets, consumersare being offered explicit choices related toagricultural production methods and impacts,most notably organic food, but also localfood, food encompassing animal welfare, andspecific products, such as shade-grown coffeeor sustainably managed timber (4, 17, 45, 48).

Research on food impacts tends to focus onenergy, chemical and water input, and green-house gas emissions. There is less emphasis onimpacts linked to soil quality and loss of bio-diversity. There are some foodstuffs for whichoverconsumption is seen as directly threaten-ing the survival of species (e.g., bluefin tuna),and destructive methods of harvesting fish re-sources are blamed for marine ecosystem de-struction, which threatens the future viabilityof fisheries (75).

One contentious aspect of food consump-tion is the “food miles” within modern globalfood distribution chains because of the embed-ded energy and the CO2 emissions involved ininternational food transport (27). The extent towhich distance traveled represents a good proxyfor environmental impact depends on a consid-erable number of factors, including compara-tive direct energy use in farming systems andthe energy used for refrigeration and storage(16, 17, 27). Although there is a general assump-tion that “home cooked” meals will have lowerenvironmental impacts than processed foods,a life cycle comparison by Sonesson and col-leagues (76) revealed a different mix of impactsrather than a different order.

4.5. Home Management Impacts

The construction, maintenance, and eventualdemolition of homes provide significant envi-ronmental impacts, but again, many of thesereflect decisions and practices outside the con-sumers’ control. The allocation of impacts fora product, which may have existed before the

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consumer was born and may outlive them bygenerations, is also problematic. More com-monly researched are the environmental im-pacts of domestic management practices in thehome, including energy and water usage andwaste management behaviors, e.g., recycling(27, 64). In the United States, for example,direct energy consumption by households ac-counts for 27% of total energy consumptionand 41% of CO2 emissions (77). Of the directenergy use, 18% is for space heating, 8% is forhot water, 27% is for appliances and lighting,and 6% for air-conditioning. Consumption be-haviors in home insulation, energy-efficient ap-pliance purchase, and other energy-saving be-haviors are therefore among the more heavilyresearched sets of PEB.

The significance of these impacts varies be-tween countries and contexts. The significanceof water use varies according to its abundancewithin specific countries and the reuse and re-cycling effectiveness of the water managementsystem (water being rather different than en-ergy or food in the extent to which consumptiondestroys or transforms it). Similarly, energy im-pacts depend upon the generating technologyused (77).

4.6. Transport Impacts

Transport impacts are significant in terms ofthe energy used and CO2 produced (27, 64, 78),and in industrialized countries the dominanceof the private car means that the energy andmaterial usage for cars is considerable (62). Inthe United States, 41% of household energyuse is accounted for by vehicles (77). Despiteimprovements in the environmental efficienciesof car engines and other technologies, the con-tinuing growth in travel and transport interna-tionally has kept the environmental impacts oftransport rising (27).

Transport behaviors tend to be very com-plex, reflecting many aspects of individuals,their location and lifestyle as much as theirspecific choices, and this can make transportbehaviors particularly difficult and complex toinfluence (79, 80). Transport behaviors can

be divided between relatively habitual travelfor work, shopping, and leisure and travel fortourism. Tourism impacts are outweighed byhabitual travel but have risen significantly withincreasing air travel. Although aviation still ac-counts for a relatively small proportion of globaltransport impacts, it is growing rapidly (27), andfor some individuals, flying may represent a sig-nificant proportion of their impact.

5. UNDERSTANDING GREENCONSUMPTION BEHAVIOR

Much of the research on green consumption hassought to profile green consumers and identifythe factors that influence their behavior includ-ing the following issues.

5.1. Economic Rationality

Economic research emphasizes the role of pricesignals and rational consumer choices, whichreflect self-interest and perceived costs and ben-efits (3). Economic incentives can include di-rect financial rewards, penalties for specific be-haviors, and subsidies for particular productsor services (for example, fines for lone driversusing car-pool lanes or government incentiveschemes for scrapping old cars). Research evi-dence shows such incentives can be potentiallyeffective (81, 82), for example, Bartelings &Sterner (83) reviewed a Swedish weight-basedwaste-charging system trial and found signifi-cant increases in recycling behavior and reduc-tions in waste collected (35% in weight overone year). However, these incentives dependon consumer awareness and an understandingof the economic implications of consumptiondecisions, which in practice are often lacking,as Turrentine & Kurani (84) found in relationto American consumers’ knowledge of gasolineprices.

The reported inconsistencies in consumerresponse to financial incentives suggest thatrational choice models have limited explana-tory power and that behavioral change for botheconomic and environmental reasons faces nu-merous obstacles (85). Although the evolutionof the research agenda has demonstrated that


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there is far more to green consumption behav-ior than economic rationality, perceived costsand benefits remain one of the most consistentlysignificant influences cited.

5.2. Demographics

Between the early 1970s and 1995, the dom-inant stream of green consumer research con-cerned attempts to profile green consumers anddevelop meaningful market segmentations us-ing various criteria (9, 86). Studies originatingfrom economics have often applied sociode-mographic segmentations to understand dif-ferences in responses to economic incentivesand to explain differences in consumer behav-iors, such as participation in recycling (87).Variables examined include sex, age, presenceand number of children, educational level, andsocioeconomic class (88–92). The main consis-tency within this research, however, is the in-consistency in the findings and conclusions (3,9). In a comprehensive review of this research,Diamantopoulos and colleagues (93) concludedthat, although sociodemographics cannot be ig-nored, in isolation they are of limited valuewhen trying to profile green consumers or un-derstand green consumption behavior.

5.3. Impact-Income-SpendingRelationships

Research shows a strong, if unsurprising, rela-tionship between household income and totalenvironmental impacts. Lenzen & Murray (94)found that those Australian households spend-ing A$25,000 per person annually had an av-erage footprint of double that of householdsspending A$10,000 per person. Similar corre-lations were found in the eco-footprint studyfor Wales (95). What these studies revealed isthat the strong correlation between consumerexpenditure and eco-footprint disguises a com-plex relationship. Both studies showed consid-erable variation between the highest and low-est footprints at different expenditure levels,with some consumers having higher footprintsthan others spending at least 50% more. This

demonstrates the importance of consumptionchoices and lifestyles, as well as the absolutelevel of affluence.

5.4. Environmental Knowledge

Environmental knowledge is frequently as-sumed to drive green consumption behav-ior, and some of the research supports this.Bartkus and colleagues (96) found that bothself-reported and particularly objectively mea-sured environmental knowledge had positiveeffects on green consumer behavior. By con-trast, Davies and colleagues (97) found thatknowledge about recycling activities did notinfluence participation in curbside recyclingschemes, and Pedersen & Neergaard (98) foundthat improving information provided to con-sumers does not necessarily lead to changes inpurchasing behavior. Other research has shownthat attempts to increase consumer knowledgethrough the provision of information has littleimpact on behavior (3) and can leave some con-sumers confused or feeling overwhelmed (99,100).

The inconsistency in findings about theimportance of knowledge has yet to be fullyexplored or explained by research. One ex-planation may be that increasing consumers’environmental knowledge may alert them tothe environmentally unsustainable nature of ex-isting systems of consumption and productionand the absolute shortcomings in sustainabilityterms of green product offerings (47). Im-portant distinctions may need to be drawnbetween knowledge and understanding aboutenvironmental issues, about the environmentalconsequences of consumption behavior, andabout the relationship between them. Some re-searchers have argued that changing consumerbehavior depends on connecting environmentalinformation to aspects of consumers’ lives andbehaviors (101, 102). Anable and colleagues(78) conducted a wide-ranging review ofresearch on consumer travel behaviors and cli-mate change. They found that levels of aware-ness about climate change were relatively high.However, a deeper understanding of climate

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change and its consequences was more patchy,and the links individuals’ made to their ownconsumption and lifestyles were inconsistentand often vague (78). Hobson (101) found thatbehaviors were most likely to be changed whennew information prompted consumers to thinkdifferently about aspects of their consumption.

5.5. Attitudes, Beliefs, and Values

It is argued that research into green consump-tion has overemphasized objective factors re-lated to knowledge and economic rationality,whereas in practice, intuitive and emotional fac-tors are more important in shaping behavioralchange (103). Although emotional responses(such as fear, anger, guilt, shame, or pride) area potentially significant influence on behavior(104), there is little research linking emotions togreen consumption beyond responses to adver-tising appeals (105). This represents a potentialfuture research opportunity.

More fully researched are the roles of atti-tudes, beliefs, and values in influencing greenconsumer behavior (3, 9). One research themeconnects existing models of values to PEB(106), as Pepper et al. (107) did with Schwartz’svalue types. Such research has generally con-cluded that individuals who are relatively altru-istic on Schwartz’s proself/prosocial dimensionand open to change, rather than conservative,are the most likely to engage in PEB (108).

More recently, research has sought to ex-amine the influence of more specific environ-mental values and beliefs (109) on behaviors(110). For example, environmental attitudeshave been shown to be good predictors of con-sumers’ willingness to pay a premium for greenproducts, such as organic food or green elec-tricity tariffs (88, 93, 111), and to engage in re-cycling electronic waste (112).

Although the research literature generallysupports the influence of values on PEB, there isalso evidence that the same values do not influ-ence all types of PEB, nor in the same way (107,113, 114). Barr (115) found that product reuseand waste-minimization intentions and behav-iors were strongly related to values concerning

environmental protection and the importanceof nature, but this was not the case for recy-cling, where practicalities and more normativesocial influences were more influential. Simi-larly, one commercial market research surveyfound that U.K. consumers expressing strongenvironmental values were more likely to recy-cle and conserve water but not more likely tobuy organic food or avoid leaving appliances onstandby. Low-energy lightbulb use was actuallyhigher among the group expressing weaker en-vironmental values (116).

To a considerable extent, environmentalvalues reflect particular cultural traditions, andsome research seeks to judge environmentalvalue differences between countries (117) or be-tween cultural/ethnic groups within countries(118). Harris’s review of evidence (119) con-cerning Chinese consumers notes that Chineseculture takes a highly instrumental view of theenvironment as existing for the benefit of peo-ple. He also concluded that Chinese consumersare little different from those in other parts ofthe world in considering environmental issuesas important in an abstract way, but they are un-likely to significantly influence their consump-tion behaviors while the environment does notdirectly impact upon themselves, their families,and their lifestyle.

Despite its comparatively large size, theresearch literature suffers from an overuse ofvery broad environmental measures of concernor “general conservation stance” (11, 120)and a frequent assumption that prosocial andproenvironmental values are similar or inter-connected expressions of altruism. In reality,the values of a misanthropic animal-lovermay be very different from someone inter-ested in ethical consumption on the basis ofstrong humanist values. On some issues, socialand environmental values may be presented asopposed (for example, in the exploitation of en-vironmental resources to help tackle poverty),and consumers may be presented with choicesbased on competing socioenvironmental val-ues, for example, choosing between Fair Trade,sustainable, or “rainforest friendly” coffees(121).


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New environmentalparadigm (NEP):establishing values,perspectives, andpolitical, economic,and technologicalinstitutions, whichreflect the principlesof sustainabledevelopment

Perceived consumereffectiveness: thebelief that engaging ina particularconsumption behaviorwill make a positivedifference

One aspect of the values-based agenda hasbeen the concept of an emerging new environ-mental paradigm (NEP) (122). Kilbourne &Polonsky (123), among others, highlight thatimproving consumer environmental knowl-edge and promoting stronger environmental at-titudes and values may not necessarily resultin behavioral change within industrialized soci-eties where the underlying DSP is consumptionoriented. They call for more research into howcollective values would need to evolve to facil-itate greener consumption and into how mes-sages could be framed to raise awareness of theneed to change the DSP. An important type ofattitude that is shaped by the DSP, but remainsunderresearched, is expectation (3, 124). Con-sumer satisfaction, and what consumers maybe willing to accept in relation to compro-mises or inconveniences, is strongly influencedby their expectations. Our expectations aboutliving standards, investment returns, availabil-ity of unseasonal produce in grocery stores orof cheap flights to distant countries, and manyother things will play an important part in atransition to a more sustainable economy.

5.6. Responsibility, Control, andPersonal Effectiveness

Another underresearched set of attitudes, val-ues and beliefs concerns consumer perspectivesin ascribing responsibilities for both causingand solving environmental problems, and theirability to contribute to their solution throughconsumption behaviors. The scarcity of re-search considering consumers’ sense of per-sonal responsibility for environmental damageperhaps reflects a dominant business culturebased on consumer sovereignty, which empha-sizes the consumer’s right to engage in any(legal) form of consumer behavior.

How consumers divide up responsibility forenvironmental problems, and whether they be-lieve they have the ability to make a significantdifference, both have the potential to influencebehavior. Perceived consumer effectiveness, theextent to which consumers believe that any ac-tion they take can have a meaningful impact on

a particular issue, has been shown to be a sig-nificant influence on consumer response (125,126). A study by Zaccaı (127) found that evenamong consumers willing to pay a premiumfor greener products, they may remain uncon-vinced about the importance of their contribu-tion and will still tend to expect a legislativeresponse from public authorities.

There is an assumption in much of theliterature that over time environmental knowl-edge will increase, leading to a strengtheningof environmental values and to a willingnessto take some responsibility for tackling envi-ronmental problems. However, Wray-Lakeand colleagues (128) found that, over a 30-yearperiod, environmental concerns among Ameri-can adolescents had not strengthened, and theyincreasingly saw environmental responsibilitiesas something for government, business, or anabstract notion of “the consumer” rather thanthemselves.

5.7. Lifestyles and Habits

Green consumption behavior research con-centrates on individual products or types ofconsumption behavior. From a sustainabilityperspective, it is the collective impact of all aconsumer’s behaviors that is more significant.This is illustrated by the so-called rebound ef-fect for green consumption behaviors that com-bine an economic and environmental saving,such as reducing energy consumption. The en-vironmental benefits of this behavior depend onwhat is purchased with the money saved (119,129, 130). There is a need for both more re-search and practical interventions that considera range of consumption behaviors and how theyinterrelate. For example, the EcoTeam pro-gram addresses a suite of 38 household behav-iors (131). The integration of a number of typesof PEBs has led to the notion of “Lifestylesof Health and Sustainability” as a focus for re-search (2) and as a market segment definition asa target for green products. Behavior as an ex-pression of lifestyle is an important avenue forresearch because it can help explain some of theinconsistencies and compromises embedded in

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consumers’ behaviors when examined as awhole (33, 132, 133).

Green consumption research frequentlyemploys behavioral models and theories thatassume a high degree of consumer involve-ment and conscious decision making. Analternative perspective is that much of our en-vironmental impact as consumers relates to ev-eryday activities, which are influenced moreby habit than conscious thought, i.e., those ofhousehold management, grocery shopping, andtravel between homes and workplaces (36, 97,103). This has prompted a stream of researchaimed at understanding consumption throughsociological theories of practice (134), whichemphasize routine and habit, and also the influ-ence of shared understandings, social conven-tions, technical know-how and infrastructure,and competing values (36).

Barr and colleagues (135) divided consump-tion behaviors into three clusters—purchasedecisions (shopping, composting, and reuse),habits (domestic water and energy conserva-tion), and recycling—and found these relate towhat they termed different lifestyles as definedby sociodemographic characteristics and values.In this case, the conflation of composting andreuse as purchasing decisions seems curious,and this may reflect a shared perception amongthe majority of consumers of these as highereffort/involvement behaviors. Knussen and col-leagues (136) found that household behaviorswere not just a choice between the deliberateand the habitual and that more complex do-mestic routines involved more semiautomaticbehavior patterns.

Much green consumption research takes astatic snapshot view of a particular behavioralintention or behavior (such as a purchase) atone point in time. From an environmental im-pact perspective, it is important to understandthe persistence over time of PEBs, such asconsumption reduction, choice of greener al-ternatives, frugal household management, orengagement in recycling (131). Tucker &Speirs’ (137) study of household waste man-agement found that the factors that influencea decision to initially engage in home compost-

ing are different from those that help to main-tain the behavior. They also found that theseattitudes were themselves shaped by the expe-rience of the behavior, so although consumerbehavior models of green consumption largelyassume that attitudes shape behavior, it is alsoimportant to acknowledge that experience ofthe behavior can also shape those attitudes.

5.8. Green Consumer Identitiesand Personalities

Research from environmental psychology re-veals that a consumer’s sense of self-identity caninfluence the nature and extent of their PEB(138). For example, whether or not you viewyourself as a recycler strongly predicts whetheror not you will recycle (139), and those who seethemselves as green consumers are more likelyto purchase organic foods (140). In some cases,consumers identify with a particular greenlifestyle, and their PEBs reflect this (22, 35).

Autio and colleagues (141) explored theidentities that young consumers construct forthemselves relating to green consumption be-haviors. Their interpretation identified threekey narrative roles that they adopt: (a) the an-tihero, who rejects the notion of green con-sumerism and the ability of the individual tomake a difference; (b) the environmental hero,who embraces the positive aspects of green con-sumption; and (c) the anarchist, for whom greenconsumption is a reaction against the prevailingconsumerist culture.

Another psychological approach to under-standing green consumption concerns whetherthere are particular personality types that aremore or less prone to engaging in PEB. Fraj &Martinez (142), for example, found that per-sonality factors, such as extroversion, agree-ableness, and conscientiousness, were positivelyrelated to PEB.

5.9. Consumption Context

Economics, demographics, consumer values,and psychology all contribute to an understand-ing of green consumption behavior. However,


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the clearest conclusions emerging from the re-search literature are that green consumers areextremely heterogeneous and that their behav-ior is not subject to a single explanation or a sin-gle best way to influence it (99, 143). The driveto understand green consumption by identify-ing the green consumer mirrors the conven-tional managerial mind-set, with its focus onidentifying consistent and stable types of con-sumers for their marketing efforts (9).

An alternative perspective is to acknowl-edge that PEB can be influenced by situa-tional factors, with even those consumers withstrong environmental values showing incon-sistency in when and how those values influ-ence their behaviors (47). A simple example isDolnicar & Grun’s (144) finding that the ma-jority of consumers did not maintain their PEBswhile on vacation. Another perspective on con-text is that, as individuals move through partic-ular life stages and life events, the likelihoodof engaging in PEB may alter. Moving to anew house, for example, has been identified as alife-stage opportunity during which consumersmay establish new greener behavior patterns(145).

Contextual factors of time and place influ-ence PEB throughout the consumption pro-cess and a range of consumption types. Partly,this reflects the nature and infrastructure of thecommunities within which people live (146–148). Decisions about personal travel or wastedisposal will be influenced by local transportand waste management infrastructure. At ahousehold level, these decisions may also be in-fluenced by whether a home has storage spacefor a bicycle or a garden to facilitate com-posting. Similarly, the physical infrastructure oftheir home will influence an individual’s choicesand consumption of energy for heating andlighting.

Contextual factors also include the systemsof consumption that consumers depend upon tomeet their needs. Spaargaren & van Vliet (149)envisage PEBs as everyday social practices thatreflect a compromise between the lifestyle aspi-rations of the consumer (shaped by their senseof identity, values, and circumstances) and the

nature of the public and commercial provision-ing systems that meet their needs.

As Burgess and colleagues (34) note, con-textual factors are highly significant in termsof their influence on PEB but are usually diffi-cult to significantly change for consumers, pol-icy makers, and businesses.

5.10. Spatial Dimensions

One set of influences that combines elementsof demographics with contextual influences isthe geography of PEB in terms of spatial varia-tions at local, regional, and national levels. Theenvironmental impacts of particular types ofconsumption also vary between countries, re-flecting their style of housing, agricultural sys-tems, and specific mix of energy sources (64).At a more localized level, studies have revealeddifferences in attitudes and behaviors betweenthose living in rural and urban areas, which maypartly reflect differences in access to particu-lar products, services, and waste infrastructure(147). Similarly, lifestyles and the consumptionpatterns that accompany them may be influ-enced by location. An obvious example is thepattern of suburban living, which is prevalentthroughout countries like the United States andmuch of Western Europe and is highly depen-dent upon affordable fuel for personal trans-port. Tanner and colleagues (150), in a studybased in Switzerland, found that living circum-stances (size of household and urban/rural lo-cation), time pressures, and the characteristicsof locally available retailers were more impor-tant than socioeconomic factors in influencinggreen consumption.

5.11. Consumption as a Social Process

Green consumption research has mirrored con-sumption research more generally in focusingmostly on the nature of consumers and theiractions as individuals. This has been criticizedbecause it overlooks or downplays the impor-tance of the social, political, and historial con-text and conditions of our lives and lifestyles(36, 99). Sociological perspectives complement

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marketing’s emphasis on economics and psy-chology by considering consumption as a so-cial process shaped by cultural conventions andshared meanings, routines, cultural representa-tions, and the tacit rules that govern appropriatebehavior in different social contexts (3, 133).

Much of our consumption behavior does notsimply reflect ourselves and our circumstances,but it also reflects our social relationships andobligations so that we behave not just as indi-viduals but as members of families, households,communities, and social networks (3, 151).Research demonstrates that the behavior ofothers also shapes our interpretations of, andresponses to, the situations we find ourselvesin. This is particularly true of situations that wefind in some way novel, ambiguous, or uncer-tain (152), which may be the case when con-sumers engage in PEB.

Consumption activities and marketingcommunications about them are imbued withmeanings, and these meanings are “consumed”as well as tangible resources. Within theconsumer culture of industrialized and in-dustrializing cultures, consumption generallycommunicates purely positive meanings linkedto inclusion, happiness, and fulfilment. By con-trast, not consuming is positioned negatively,as missing out. This is part of what limits be-haviors among concerned consumers to thoselinked to recycling and consuming differently(and possibly more) by consuming productsperceived as green (22). What we purchase oravoid purchasing, and how we use and disposeof particular products, can help to constructour social identity and provide signals aboutthat identity to others. The popularity of theToyota Prius among politicians and celebritiesprobably says more about how they wish to beperceived by others than about the strength oftheir environmental values.

5.12. Social Norms aboutthe Environment

Social norms are an important influence ongreen consumption and are fundamental tomany of the theories and models concerning

consumption (33). The concept of social normsincludes both what we perceive to be commonpractice or normal (descriptive norms) and be-haviors we perceive to be morally right or whatought to be done (injunctive social norms). Bothtypes of norms can have a strong influence ongreen consumption behaviors (3), but beyondcategories of consumption with a specific eth-ical issue attached (such as the consumptionof veal or use of peat-based soil conditioners),research tends to focus more on descriptivenorms and whether behaviors are perceived asnormal or “alternative.” Barr (115), for exam-ple, found that recycling was widely adoptedbecause it was perceived by householders asnormal, whereas consumption reduction strate-gies were only adopted by a strongly value-driven few and were generally perceived asalternative.

Goldstein and colleagues (153) found thatthe use of normative appeals that stressed that“the majority of guests reuse their towels” en-couraged more hotel guests to do the same thanconventional messages simply stressing the en-vironmental benefits of towel reuse. Interest-ingly, the response to their normative messagewas even stronger when it related more closelyto the circumstances and situation of the hotelguest through a message that states: “The ma-jority of guests in this room reuse their towels.”This may be because such a framing allows theconsumer to identify more closely with the ma-jority and to envisage the behavior in questionand themselves adopting it.

A common research question concerns theextent to which green consumers will pay a pricepremium for greener products (88, 111, 112).Such research carries an implicit message thatexisting prices are the norm and that greenerproducts represent an expensive luxury. An al-ternative perspective is that the product priceswe currently accept as normal are in fact dis-torted because they do not reflect the full envi-ronmental and social costs of production andconsumption, and these prices are thereforeeffectively subsidized and unrealistically inex-pensive. The power of research itself to rein-force social norms about consumption and the


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TPB: theory ofplanned behavior

environment generally goes unacknowledgedby researchers.

5.13. The Media

The media plays an important role in greenconsumption behavior because of the de-pendence of the public on the media forenvironmental information (154) and itseffect on public environmental awareness,knowledge, opinion, and concern (155). Themedia are central players in the construction ofcontemporary consumer culture and thereforein any moves to create a more sustainableconsumption culture (156). The effect of themedia on green consumer behavior, however,remains underresearched. The use of newand emerging communications approachesand technologies, and also the influence ofsocial networks, presents new opportunitiesfor policy, practice, and research (157).

6. ANALYZING GREENCONSUMPTION

Early green consumption research embodied anotion of a single specific type of green con-sumer, whose environmental concern was aproduct of a narrow range of sociodemographicand psychographic variables. There was alsoan assumption that this concern would trans-late into changed consumption behavior rela-tively consistently across different consumptionspheres. As the body of research has maturedand expanded, it has become clear that the re-ality is far more complex than this, and otherstudies have emerged that have identifed andanalyzed some of the complexities.

6.1. Segmenting Green Markets

Finding meaningful and consistent ways to seg-ment green markets has been one main streamof green consumer research, and many of theearliest approaches to segmentation were re-viewed by Straughan & Roberts (86). Theirreview mainly covers academic studies but in-cludes the best-known commercial segmen-tation from the market research firm Roper

Organization. They broadly conclude that thesociodemographic emphasis, which dominatedmany early segmentation attempts, is less ef-fective than psychographic segmentation bases,and they also highlight the importance of per-ceived consumer effectiveness.

One of the more sophisticated attempts ata segmentation, which encompasses a range ofinfluences and different behaviors, was under-taken by the British Market Research Bureaufor the U.K.’s Department of Environment,Food and Rural Affairs (158). This also seg-mented people according to the barriers thatdeterred people from greener behaviors.

6.2. Modeling GreenConsumer Behavior

Green consumption research has involved ap-plying (and sometimes adapting) establishedtheories and models from consumer behav-ior research to PEB, and in some cases, newgreen consumption theories and models havebeen proposed [a comprehensive review of con-sumer behavior theories and models and theirapplication to green consumption is providedin Jackson’s research monograph “MotivatingSustainable Consumption” (3)].

Among the models most commonly ap-plied to green consumerism are the theoryof reasoned action (TRA) and the relatedtheory of planned behavior (TPB). These viewbehaviors as shaped by intentions, which inturn are driven by consumer attitudes towardthat behavior, and expected outcomes from it,and also by a subjective norm reflecting socialbeliefs about what others will think (in the caseof TPB, perceived behavioral control is alsoincluded as a moderator of norms, intentions,and behavior). Despite the popularity of TPBand TRA modeling approaches to greenconsumption behaviors, they have some severelimitations, which are explored by Davies andcolleagues (97) in the context of recyclingbehaviors.

One common criticism of TRA and TPBis that they neglect the important influenceof context, which led to the development

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of Stern and colleagues’ Attitude-Behavior-Context (ABC) model (160). As the name sug-gests, this views behavior as a product of bothconsumer attitudes and the context in whichthey operate (159, 160). Alternatively, theMotivation-Opportunity-Ability model distillsthe essence of the TRA to provide an expla-nation of the motivation for particular behav-iors, but also states that eventual behavior willalso be determined by the consumer’s ability toengage in the behavior (in terms of skills andtask knowledge) and the extent to which theirsituation provides the relevant opportunity toengage in it. This model has been applied toPEB, such as household energy consumptionreduction (161).

Schwartz’s norm activation theory (162)views behavior as driven by personal norms,which are shaped by consumer perceptionsabout the consequences of behavior and theirfeelings of personal responsibility for thoseconsequences. This has been applied to a num-ber of green behaviors, including recycling,household energy adaptations, and exploringalternatives to car use (145, 163, 164). Thethemes of the consequences of consumptionand the personal responsibility of consumersare continued by Stern and colleagues’ Value-Belief-Norm Model. This model sees the devel-opment of personal proenvironmental normsamong consumers as crucial to promote bothprivate behaviors of green consumption and asense of “environmental citizenship” to gener-ate greater support for proenvironmental pub-lic policies (149, 159, 165). Stern views thedevelopment of such proenvironmental beliefsand norms as flowing from the acceptance ofa NEP in which conventional egotistic val-ues (i.e., individualistic and materialistic con-sumer values) are balanced by social altruisticvalues and environmentally oriented biosphericvalues (160).

6.3. Behavioral Catalystsand Spillovers

Insights from psychology demonstrate thattypes of behavior can be interconnected and

that there may be “spillover” effects in whichinvolvement in one form of PEB increasesthe propensity of consumers to engage inothers (166, 167). This has led to a searchfor catalyst behaviors, such as engagement inrecycling, whereby involvement may act as astarting point for other behaviors. Biswas andcolleagues (168), for example, found significantcorrelations between recycling behaviors andthe purchase of recycled/recyclable products.Thøgersen & Olander’s Danish research (120)showed that individuals were fairly consistentwithin similar categories of behavior. Theyfound significant correlations between buyingorganic food and recycling; buying organicfood and using alternative transport; and re-cycling and using alternative transport, whichwere accounted for by common motivationalcauses linked to general environmental valuesand concern.

Several explanations can be put forward asto why one behavior may lead to another. Itmay mark the beginning of the consumer con-structing an identity as a green consumer, at-taching more value to the environment becausethey are engaged in one PEB, or because in-volvement leads to greater awareness of envi-ronmental issues or social norms about them.An alternative view is that there may be nega-tive spillovers (or perhaps more accurately be-havioral containment) in which engagement inone type of behavior provides reluctant con-sumers with a reason not to adopt others (169),the logic being “I recycle my waste, therefore Idon’t need to worry about saving energy.”

6.4. The Attitude-Behavior Gap

One notable and recurring theme within theresearch literature is the “attitude-behaviorgap” reflecting the fact that environmentalknowledge and strongly held proenvironmen-tal values, attitudes, and intentions frequentlyfail to translate into green purchasing andother PEB in practice (48, 142, 170). One ofthe commonest explanations for this gap is thatit reflects a tendency for studies to overreportthe strength of environmental attitudes or


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intentions owing to a bias linked to the socialacceptability of proenvironmental responses(11). The attitude/intention-behavior gap mayalso be underrepresented in the literaturebecause research often relies on self-reportedbehaviors, which may be overstated. Daviesand colleagues’ (97) study of recycling behaviorrelied on direct observation of participationin curbside recycling schemes and found that84% of nonparticipants still claimed that theyrecycled some to all of their household waste.

Several explanations for these observed gapsare proposed. Some relate to consumers them-selves, whereby habits, financial constraints,or lifestyles act as a constraint, whereas oth-ers reflect specific types of purchases in whichold brand loyalties, uncertainties, or perceivedtrade-offs between different ethical factorsprovide disincentives to PEB (47, 169–171).Ottman and colleagues (172), commenting onthe results of Roper ASW’s Green Gauge R© re-search, identify the key reason why consumersdo not buy green products as the common-place belief that they require sacrifices in termsof convenience, costs, or performance withoutproviding significant real environmental bene-fits. There may also be social norm effects atwork. Gupta & Ogden (126) when researchingenergy conservation found a strong referencegroup effect and a tendency for a gap to emergewhere there was a lack of trust in others, lowexpectations that others would join in, and aperceived lack of efficacy.

6.5. Complexity and Integration

Although modeling approaches that applyor extend theories like TPB are a popularapproach to researching green consumptionbehavior, their value is limited by tendencies tofocus on a small number of influences withinthe model and to treat heterogeneous PEBsalike. Over time, attempts to create moreintegrated models, which combine insightsfrom economics, psychology and sociology,have emerged in an attempt to capture thevariety of behavioral influences (173). Jackson(3) discusses attempts to create comprehensive

models of consumption behavior that can beapplied to green consumption, such as byextending Bagozzi and colleagues’s Compre-hensive Model of Consumer Action (174).However, their complexity make them difficultto test holistically (3). Most research insteadtests particular sets of relationships as a subsetof such comprehensive models, but this maynot reveal the relative importance of differencetypes of influence nor provide an understandingof how such comprehensive models of behaviormight operate at a total systems level (3).

Barr (115) tested a model of postuse be-haviors (including waste minimization, reuse,and recycling behaviors) that integrated val-ues, psychological factors, and situational fac-tors. This showed that, as well as demonstratingthat proenvironmental values were significantin waste minimization and reuse (but not recy-cling) behaviors, all those behaviors were influ-enced by the following situational variables:

• service provision,• sociodemographics,• behavioral experience,• policy interventions/instruments,• global environmental knowledge,• waste knowledge,• policy knowledge, and• knowing where/how to recycle.

PEBs were also influenced by the following psy-chological variables:

• perception of the environmentalproblem,

• outcome beliefs of behavior,• active concern and obligation,• logistics of behavior,• subjective norms,• ascription of responsibility to act,• citizenship beliefs, and• intrinsic motivation and response

efficacy.

Barr considers this set of influences capable ofaffecting a range of other green consumptionbehaviors and of setting an agenda for policymakers and businesses to address in develop-ing products, services, and strategies to moti-vate green consumption behavior.

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Ultimately what the research reveals is thatgreen consumption is a complex process, giventhe heterogeneity of consumers, what they con-sume, and the dynamic context of the diversepurchasing and consumption situations theyoperate within (99, 144, 175). Even the green-est of consumers are likely to have types of be-havior they treat as exceptions. McDonald andcolleagues (176) found that many, exhibitingstrongly green behaviors, would treat behav-iors such as private car use or long-haul flightsfor holidays as exceptions to which green val-ues and criteria were not applied. The reality ofconsumer decision processes is that competingvalues and priorities and varying contexts leadto complex compromises of economics, values,and practicalities, sometimes leading to para-doxical outcomes (176, 177).

7. MOTIVATING GREENCONSUMPTION BEHAVIOR

The ultimate aim of much research into greenconsumption behavior is to understand how tomotivate, influence, and harness it in pursuitof commercial or public policy goals (27, 158).This issue is tackled in depth by Jackson (3),and many of the key research findings concernrelatively obvious steps, such as the provisionof better environmental literacy and knowledgethrough education, technical improvements tokey products, regulation and fiscal incentives,and structural changes to facilitate greenerbehaviors.

Developing strategies to encourage PEBamong businesses and public policy organiza-tions (27, 158, 178) is another significant fieldof research, but because it more accurately de-scribes the behavior of those organizations, it islargely beyond the scope of this review. How-ever, certain means to encourage green con-sumer behavior are worth specific discussionhere.

7.1. Green Labeling

The marketing efforts of companies are akey influence on PEB, as discussed by Lebel& Lorek (2), with a particular emphasis on

labeling and certification. Most eco-labelinginitiatives target the choice phase of consump-tion by informing consumers about ingredi-ents, production methods, or in-use resourceefficiency. Other forms of label are starting toemerge to also influence other aspects of theconsumption process, such as life span label-ing, which gives consumers extra informationabout the potential life span of a product andthe potential to repair it (179).

Labels can help to address lack of environ-mental literacy among consumers, informationasymmetry between producers and consumers,and the erosion of consumer trust caused bymedia coverage of business greenwash (179).Labels can contain both visual cues and textualinformation, and consumers appear to respondto both (180). However, there is researchevidence suggesting that in some cases thepresence of eco-labels can stimulate additionalconsumption, which negates any environmen-tal benefits from greener choices (181, 182).As Rex & Baumann (179) observe, the researchinto eco-labeling has been hampered by a lackof integration with more mainstream researchin marketing and consumer behavior. It could,for example, be better integrated with researchinto green branding strategies (48, 183).

7.2. Choice Editing

One relatively new research theme linked tochoice is the phenomenon of “choice editing,”which involves offering consumers restrictedchoice by removing the least sustainable op-tions. Although it goes against the notion ofconsumer sovereignty, it may provide a solu-tion to problems of information overload or un-certainty among consumers. Choice editing’seffectiveness is also dependent on consumertrust. Although it is being proposed as a po-tential pathway to greener consumption in pol-icy spheres (158), the practical acceptability andlimitations of choice editing still need to betested through research.

7.3. Social Marketing

Green consumption research, with its conven-tional emphasis on purchases, focuses largely


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Social marketing:the application ofcommercial marketingprocesses and tools tosecure behavioralchange to reach socialor environmental goals

on commercial marketing. However, reducingcertain types of consumption, and the environ-mental impacts of consumption, is an impor-tant social goal for many public policy makers(albeit one that, in the case of consumption re-duction, can bring policy makers charged withreducing environmental damage into conflictwith policies to expand economic growth). Thishas made green consumption an emerging issuewithin the social marketing agenda and withinsocial marketing scholarship. Social marketinginvolves the application of commercial market-ing principles and techniques to influence a tar-get audience to change their behavior to meetsocial goals. Although health has been the dom-inant field for social marketing applications andresearch, it is increasingly being applied to en-vironmental issues (such as recycling) and thepromotion of low-carbon behaviors (such as cy-cling, walking and using public transport), con-sumption reduction, and the promotion of sus-tainable life cycles (184–186).

Social marketing is also potentially signifi-cant because of the emphasis it places on un-derstanding and overcoming the barriers toprosocial (and environmental) behavior (185).Research into green consumption tends to focuson the desired behaviors and how consumersmight be incentivized to adopt them. Com-paratively little research considers the psycho-logical, physical, social, economic, and struc-tural barriers that might prevent consumersfrom acting on any environmental concerns andadopting particular PEBs (158, 187).

7.4. Collective Action and Activism

A common criticism of consumer behavior the-ories and models based on rational choice istheir focus on the individual as the unit of choiceand behavior (3). There is growing acknowl-edgment that the behavioral changes needed forsustainability will not be achieved by focusingonly on the attitudes and behavior of individ-uals (188). Alternative, and more sustainable,approaches to meeting our wants and needsmay require more collective, community-basedsolutions. For example, some waste reducing

strategies for postuse product disposition arenot feasible for individual consumers and de-pend on collective solutions (58). Communityschemes for the provision of more sustain-able energy, food, and transport are emergingas part of the sustainable communities move-ment, yet the consumer behavior implicationsof such collective solutions are still poorly un-derstood. There is anecdotal evidence show-ing that community-based approaches to pro-moting green consumption behaviors, such asGlobal Action Plan’s Action at Home initiativeor the EcoTeam program, are particularly ef-fective (189). A better understanding of groupnorms and processes in community settingscould help develop other effective communityschemes for the future.

One approach to behavior change, whichcombines the methodology of social market-ing with an emphasis on collective action,is community-based social marketing. Thishas been widely and successfully applied inpractical behavior change programs to supportthe promotion of car sharing as well as waterand energy savings (190, 191). Such programsare based on the use of formative marketresearch but are underrepresented in publishedsocial marketing research, which continuesto be dominated by more traditional healthapplications.

When collective action is combined withstrongly held consumer values, the result can beconsumer activism where research has mostlyfocused on protests and boycotts (192, 193) butcan also involve positive responses in the formof “buycotts” (194). Such consumer actions arefrequently influenced by the media and cam-paigning organizations, and by using online so-cial media, these activities can be organized andinternationalized at great speed.

7.5. Alternative ConsumptionCommunities

Research into collective PEBs also considers theemergence of alternative consumption commu-nities, which people join with the explicit aim ofadopting a lower-consumption lifestyle (195),

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usually through processes of voluntary simplic-ity (195, 196). Such communities are foundedon shared environmental values and, in somecases, on shared religious beliefs. They tend toevolve their own sets of norms, which influ-ence the consumption behaviors of their mem-bers. These communities engage in a reducedlevel of material consumption compared to thenorms of the societies within which they ex-ist and also practice responsible consumptionthrough ethical choices, such as reduced lev-els of meat consumption. As well as strategiesaiming to reduce waste and reduce consump-tion of some products, they also seek more ma-terially efficient forms of consumption. Theseinclude purchasing communally in bulk toreduce packaging and transport impacts, pur-chasing secondhand products, and extendingproduct life spans through repairs (58).

7.6. Integrating Productionand Consumption

An important aspect of research into green con-sumption is that it regularly blurs the bound-aries between what are conventionally consid-ered to be production and consumption issues(and therefore underlines the observation thatsustainable consumption and production can-not be split meaningfully into two separateagendas). For example, in the case of alternativeconsumption communities, they also demon-strate a desire to be self-reliant by producingsome of their own food and other products(196). This is typically done with the supportof composting, a process usually classified as awaste behavior, but it also produces a useful soilconditioner. Similarly, the Community Sup-ported Agriculture movement links consumersand producers to form localized food consump-tion and production systems (197).

End-of-life product take-back systems alsoblur these boundaries and challenge the con-ventional view of linear market structures andindustry value chains. Product take back forreuse, remanufacture, or recycling involves theconsumer acting as a resupplier of value to themanufacturer, particularly for high-value prod-

ucts like cars. The development of such “closed-loop” production and consumption systemsblurs the conventional division between con-sumers and producers so that they becomecocreators of sustainable value. Lebel & Lorek(2) propose codesign efforts as a key mechanismfor sustainablility, and such cooperative valuecreation processes were observed by Heiskanen& Lovio (198) in interactions between produc-ers and users in the adoption of low-energyhousing developments in Finland. They foundthat user involvement in the innovation process,good communication, and knowledge sharingbetween the two can aid the process of innova-tion and the adoption of innovations.

8. CONCLUSIONS

The body of research into green consumptionbehaviors has grown rapidly over the past threedecades. Its value, however, has been limitedby the continuing preference of businesses, pol-icy makers, and researchers to address the needfor more sustainable patterns of production andconsumption in terms of incremental changesto consumption behaviors that do not chal-lenge the industrialized consumer lifestyle andthe DSP. Therefore, we know an increasingamount about who uses low-energy lightbulbs,eats organic food, drives a hybrid car, opts to paya green energy tariff, takes eco-vacations, andrecycles their trash, and why. The fact that food,home management, and transport behaviors ac-count for the majority of environmental im-pacts justifies the research agenda having a clearfocus. Unfortunately, the narrowness of that fo-cus in terms of products, stages in the consump-tion process, impacts considered, and questionsstudied creates the impression of a research fieldlacking real momentum. Research on attitudes,values, intentions and norms and their impacton specific intentions and behaviors continue todominate the agenda (199), despite growing ev-idence that their influence varies across differ-ent types of behavior and contexts (12, 41, 103,107, 108, 114, 115, 135, 144, 150). As Kilbourne& Beckmann (9) noted, somewhat ruefully, theupsurge of articles on green consumption in the


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mid-to-late 1990s involved numerous titles thatwere indistinguishable from those of 25 yearspreviously when the field first emerged.

By contrast, we are only beginning to under-stand the broader picture of what an environ-mentally sustainable consumer lifestyle withinan industrialized economy might look like andwhat transformations in consumer behaviors,communities, buildings, transport infrastruc-ture, fiscal policies, and technologies are re-quired to make progress toward it. There istherefore a significant gap in the research con-necting the realities of current consumer be-havior with policy ambitions to develop zero-carbon or sustainable economies (129). Closingthis gap requires a move away from the currentoverreliance on single disciplinary perspectives(174) toward much greater integration betweenthe research traditions from economics, psy-chology, and marketing, with the more radicalresearch from sociology, anthropology, philos-ophy, and industrial ecology, which challengesthe DSP of industrialized consumer societies.

Some of the limitations of green consumerresearch reflect the methodologies employedand the emphasis on quantitative methodsand research instruments, which rely on self-reported consumer intentions and behaviors.Some of the research studies within this re-view involve practical social experiments andobservations of actual behavior (83, 97) or lon-gitudinal studies (128). Most, however, rep-resent single snapshots of consumers’ percep-tions of very specific aspects of their livesand behaviors, which may tell us very littleabout their lifestyles, environmental impacts,and ability to move toward significantly moresustainable forms of consumption. As Eden andcolleagues (102) suggest, it is time to put con-sumers back into research as real, complex peo-ple we get to know, rather than as superficialconstructs that researchers make assumptionsabout.

Our limited understanding of green con-sumer behavior largely reflects the reductionisttradition of research, with its emphasis on de-constructing complex social realities into rel-atively small sets of interacting factors in the

hope of isolating cause-and-effect relationships.This creates an emphasis on understandingconsumers as individuals, the specific behaviorsthey engage in (such as purchase or recycling),their behavior in relation to particular types ofproducts (such as organic food or low-energybulbs), all at specific times and within partic-ular consumption contexts. The end result isa lot of individual jigsaw puzzle pieces that donot yet produce a clear picture, or what Jacksoncalls a “well-informed confusion” (3).

The narrow focus of research in method-ology, research questions, and environmentalimpacts is typified by the phrase “other thingsbeing equal,” which is commonly applied as acaveat, particularly by those seeking to buildand test models of green consumption behav-ior. This rather misses the point made back in1974 by Kardash (8) when the concept of greenconsumption first emerged: If other things wereequal, all of us (perhaps with the exceptionof a small minority who enjoy contrariness)would choose the greener of two products.Understanding green consumption is thereforea question of understanding those inequali-ties between green and conventional products,choices, and behaviors (47), which may includeprice premiums; real or imagined compromisesbetween environmental attributes, brand loy-alties, performance or convenience; differencesin knowledge and trust; as well as all the socialsymbolism, personal identity dimensions, andpractical implications that can be embodied inour behaviors.

The future research agenda may also be sig-nificantly altered owing to the consequences ofthe financial “crunch,” which in the years since2008 has shifted the social and economic land-scape. Efforts to promote sustainable consump-tion behaviors against a backdrop of economicdifficulty and austerity in many countries mayfare very differently from those that occurred inthe midst of economic expansion and rising af-fluence. Returns to more self-reliant behaviors,such as growing your own vegetables, and shift-ing values concerning thrift and frugality maywell act as pathways toward more sustainableconsumption norms and behaviors (38, 200).

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SUMMARY POINTS

1. Green consumer research has been dominated largely by research from economics, whichhas emphasized rational choice; psychology, which has stressed the role of attitudes,values, and social norms; and marketing, which has combined both.

2. The idea of specific behaviors being more or less green is problematic because thereis frequently a disconnect between environmental motivations and outcomes, and theultimate sustainability of a behavior depends on understanding the entire process ofconsumption and how individual acts of consumption combine to form a lifestyle.

3. The majority of the environmental impacts of private consumption relate to a smallnumber of consumption spheres linked to homes and household management, foodchoices, behaviors at home, and travel behaviors. These have been the major focus ofresearch.

4. Despite attempts to profile green consumers and create robust green market segmenta-tions, evidence is growing that individuals are highly inconsistent in the types of con-sumption and behaviors they integrate environmental values into.

5. The research literature mostly considers consumers as individuals, but consumers mayrespond as members of families, households, or communities, and developing more sus-tainable patterns of consumption may require more collective behaviors.

6. Much of the research focuses on purchase intentions, purchase behaviors, and the fre-quently observed attitude-behavior gap, which appears to exist between them.

7. Methodologically, building and quantitatively testing models of consumer behavior dom-inates research. Green consumer behavior, however, is sufficiently complex that compre-hensive models are rendered untestable, and partial and abstracted models provide onlypartial answers.

8. The majority of research has focused on a small number of behaviors with incrementalenvironmental benefits, such as purchasing organic food, recycling, reducing car use, oradopting green electricity tariffs. Relatively little research challenges the dominant socialparadigm and consumerist lifestyle within industrialized economies.

FUTURE ISSUES

1. Research is needed that more strongly integrates sustainability principles into consump-tion behavior to move beyond simply reducing environmental impacts to challengingthe fundamental unsustainability of many aspects of consumer lifestyles in industrializedeconomies.

2. There are opportunities to apply household metabolism approaches from industrial ecol-ogy to better understand the total material implications of collective consumption be-haviors over time.

3. A better understanding of product use behaviors could help to identify opportunitiesto reduce environmental impacts during the use phase (through behaviors such as eco-driving or product repair and maintenance).


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4. The potential influence of emotional responses in shaping green consumption behaviorsmay provide new avenues for research and allow for new approaches to influencingconsumer behavior.

5. The influence of expectations and sense of responsibility on consumption behaviorsremains underresearched, and the potential for expectations management to motivateproenvironmental behaviors is worth exploring.

6. The potential influence of group norms and collective consumption initiatives and be-haviors is likely to emerge as a significant field for future research.

7. The integration of consumer and producer behavior through codesign and collabora-tive value production initiatives and also through product take-back systems provides aradically different, but potentially fruitful, field for future consumer behavior research.

8. The impact of postcrunch influences on consumption values, norms, and behaviors ispresenting significant new research opportunities globally. In tackling these, it will beimportant to integrate research on consumption in affluent economies with considerationof the needs of those at the base of the pyramid, from a social and environmental justiceperspective.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

I am the director of a U.K. government-funded research center whose remit includes researchinto sustainable production and consumption.

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Annual Review ofEnvironmentand Resources

Volume 35, 2010 Contents

Preface � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �v

Who Should Read This Series? � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �vii

I. Earth’s Life Support Systems

Human Involvement in Food WebsDonald R. Strong and Kenneth T. Frank � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 1

Invasive Species, Environmental Change and Management, and HealthPetr Pysek and David M. Richardson � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �25

Pharmaceuticals in the EnvironmentKlaus Kummerer � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �57

II. Human Use of Environment and Resources

Competing Dimensions of Energy Security: An InternationalPerspectiveBenjamin K. Sovacool and Marilyn A. Brown � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �77

Global Water Pollution and Human HealthRene P. Schwarzenbach, Thomas Egli, Thomas B. Hofstetter, Urs von Gunten,

and Bernhard Wehrli � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 109

Biological Diversity in Agriculture and Global ChangeKarl S. Zimmerer � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 137

The New Geography of Contemporary Urbanization and theEnvironmentKaren C. Seto, Roberto Sanchez-Rodrıguez, and Michail Fragkias � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 167

Green Consumption: Behavior and NormsKen Peattie � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 195

viii

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III. Management, Guidance, and Governance of Resources and Environment

Cities and the Governing of Climate ChangeHarriet Bulkeley � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 229

The Rescaling of Global Environmental PoliticsLiliana B. Andonova and Ronald B. Mitchell � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 255

Climate RiskNathan E. Hultman, David M. Hassenzahl, and Steve Rayner � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 283

Evaluating Energy Efficiency Policies with Energy-Economy ModelsLuis Mundaca, Lena Neij, Ernst Worrell, and Michael McNeil � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 305

The State of the Field of Environmental HistoryJ.R. McNeill � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 345

Indexes

Cumulative Index of Contributing Authors, Volumes 26–35 � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 375

Cumulative Index of Chapter Titles, Volumes 26–35 � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 379

Errata

An online log of corrections to Annual Review of Environment and Resources articles maybe found at http://environ.annualreviews.org

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Green Consumption

Documents

Transcript of Green Consumption