Consumers of Planetary Resources

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The world population currently consumes 70% more resources than the planet can naturally regenerate, with private consumption being a major contributor.

The research confirmed that most respondents distanced themselves from those who buy in excess when challenged about their own behavior.

The “attitude-behavioral gap" continues to affect consumers: while they acknowledge that consuming organic food enhances their well-being, they do not perceive any impact of the misalignment between their intention and actual behavior.

Several research projects suggest that customers often lack the motivation driven by environmental concerns. Recent articles have shifted towards highlighting the positive impact on well-being that adopting sustainable consumption patterns can bring. This new perspective sparks hope for a sustainable future.

What benefits can sustainable consumption provide to people?

Considering the question, “Does sustainable consumption make consumers happy?” researchers conclude that sustainable consumer behavior may create positive emotions, reinforce consumer moral identity, create a positive self-image, increase consumer happiness, and satisfy the need for connectedness with others.”

Investigating personal well‐being as people's ability to lead a self‐determined and meaningful life, Hüttel and Balderjahn conclude that cutting back on consumption has led some individuals to realize that well-being can be achieved through reduced consumption, work, and travel, prompting a shift towards leisurely pursuits at home, with family, and in nature, fostering a deeper appreciation for nature and a simple way of living characterized by voluntary simplicity, frugality, and modesty.

Brand?o and Cupertino de Miranda highlighted that sustainable consumption intends to reduce environmental concerns, increase security, achieve a reasonable natural resource distribution, increase well-being, create a healthful life, and adopt social responsibility.

Shaikh, Mukerjee, and Banerjee identified that consumers who engage in the sharing economy exhibit pro-social behavior, fostering social belonging, consumer well-being, and reducing wasteful consumption. Sharing economic experiences can help restore social connectedness lost to materialism.

Dermody et al. added that well-being and an empathic, collaborative community mindset may dominate, not an individualistic one, characterizing contemporary consumerist behavior, with human and environmental capital taking precedence over economic capital and power elites.

What is sustainable consumption?

From the theory standpoint, sustainable consumption is rooted in ethical consumer research, and studies still concentrate on its core – attitudes, values, and norms.

Earlier studies focused on attempts to understand the sustainable consumption phenomenon and the environmental impact of individual actions.

Later, it was noticed that sustainable consumption is more than ethical, and research suggests that comprehending overall sustainability can be difficult due to the lack of a shared understanding of sustainability and potential individual differences in values and attitudes.

Others point out that it is unclear which dimensions of sustainability should be prioritized and to what extent the benefits of sustainability should be emphasized. ?

Academics have suggested that the topic of sustainable consumption is very diverse. This diversity underscores the need for inclusivity in the sustainable consumption movement.?

Ecologically conscious consumers, who are at the forefront of this movement, have a wide range of concerns. They are mostly focused on issues relating to the environment, while green consumers are primarily concerned with non-genetically modified organisms, fair trade, and promoting locally produced products.

Consumers with prosocial behaviors avoid child labor and products tested on animals while promoting ecologically produced, energy-conservative, recyclable disposal, and ozone-friendly products.

Socially responsible consumers purchase based on the sellers’ social corporate sustainability performance, the availability of recyclable products, and avoid buying harmful products.

It was agreed that investigating and addressing the behavioral aspects of sustainable consumption still remains an ongoing challenge for managers and businesses.

What is the main limiting factor for sustainable consumption?

Considerable attention has been put into examining the possibility of improving sustainable consumption by reducing impulse buying.

Academic research suggests up to 80% of individual consumption is based on impulsive buying behavior.

Ah Fook, and McNeill suggested that online buyers are more impulsive than that shopping in-store; the pandemic multiplied online retail transactions.

Impulse buying is defined as episodes in which a consumer experiences a sudden, often powerful, and persistent urge to buy something immediately. Czarnecka, Schivinski, and Keles pointed out that impulsive buying is encouraged by the Western emphasis on individualistic values and hedonistic pleasure, the international spread of e-commerce, and the consumer orientation in consumption-based economies. Individuals buy impulsively due to the significance of material objects as social signals in their culture.

There is a trend of customers' impulsive behavior caused by consumers' search for immediate psychological well-being. As such, Cho, Oh & Chiu suggested that individuals usually engage in compensatory behavior to restore their positive emotional well-being, causing impulsive behaviors.

He et al. claimed that purchasing triggers positive emotions linked to impulse buying, enhancing consumers' recovery by facilitating psychological relaxation. Wei Jie, Petra, and Syed Arslan point out that from a marketing perspective, emotions are a pivotal tool in stimulating customers to fulfill their immediate desires and call to comprehend the impact of emotional intelligence on impulse purchases.

Let’s face the problem together

There is a direct contradiction between a traditional understanding of business’s role in stimulating demand and acquiring material goods or commercial services to satisfy consumer needs and growing advocacy for new socio-cultural values, which support anti-consumption, sufficiency, minimalism, or voluntary simplicity.

Businesses frequently stimulate impulsive buying behavior; therefore, corporate social responsibility is often perceived as nothing more than mere “greenwashing.” Even if consumers express a desire to curb their impulse buying, retailers have little to no incentive to be supportive; this is why marketing has been severely criticized as a “consumption engineer.” ?

Impulse buying behavior disputes the long-term well-being of customers and creates complications in implementing the social concept of sufficiency, a lifestyle advocated by sustainable degrowth. Voluntary-simplicity ideas, similar to degrowth, necessitate reducing consumption and target the creation of a new “post-development” pattern that is socially equitable and environmentally just.

Addressing this challenge requires collaboration, openness, and mutual trust. Let's face the problem together by initiating an open productive discussion of how to achieve a triple win: benefiting people, the planet, and prosperity for all.

That’s all for today.

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