Comparing sustainable consumption patterns across product sectors

By Seonaidh McDonald, Caroline Oates, M. Thyne, Panayiota J. Alevizou, Leigh-Ann McMorland. 2009

148 citations recorded by the source corpus.

In this paper, we present findings from two qualitative studies where we explored sustainable consumption practices through examining consumers' information search and decision-making processes for recent purchases of five categories of goods/services: fast moving consumer goods (such as foodstuffs and household products), white goods (such as fridges and washing machines), small electrical products (such as TVs and computers), green energy tariffs (such as electricity from renewable sources) and tourism (such as flights). This research has provided us with a set of rich data which explores the nature and extent of sustainable consumption practices across different product sectors. A comparative analysis has allowed us to draw out patterns of consumer behaviour for different product and service types. Our findings suggest that even the same green consumer will not use the same information sources or decision-making criteria, consider the same options or focus on the same industry actors, for products in different sectors. However, we have identified some degree of consistency in purchases within sectors. We present these sector-specific patterns of consumer behaviour and highlight differences in the criteria utilized and the research norms in each sector.

Subfields: Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law, Marketing, Strategy and Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e369cf690151802477c8dbc0f67d1c38e52ee04d

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Citations in the corpus

Sustainability and consumption (2011, background): “Green or ethical consumers are willing to consume less (Pepper et al. 2009), compromise on price, brand, convenience, or even product performance, to ensure that their consumptions are achieved in line with their principles (Dierksmeier and Pirson 2009; McDonald et al. 2009 ).”
Consciousness for sustainable consumption: scale development and new insights in the economic dimension of consumers’ sustainability (2013, background): “Moreover, existing research focuses mostly on single product sectors and, hence, depicts a fragmented picture (McDonald et al. 2009).”
Is sustainable tourism an obstacle to the economic performance of the tourism industry? Evidence from an international empirical study (2015, background): “However, other authors, such as Carrigan and Attalla (2001), McDonald, Oates, and Thyne (2009), Yates (2008), or Weaver (2012a), argue that consumers, in this case tourists, in general have just a superficial sensitivity to environmental issues, since they state that they are concerned, while, in…”
Individual strategies for sustainable consumption (2012, methodology): “This approach supports two forms of analysis: a comparison of the decision-making processes across product types (see McDonald, Oates, Thyne, Alevizou, & McMorland, 2009 ), and the patterns evident in the processes and strategies used by individuals to green their lifestyles when they are viewed as”