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Enhancing Environmentally Conscious Consumption through Standardized Sustainability Information
Author(s) -
Cho YoonNa,
Soster Robin L.,
Burton Scot
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
journal of consumer affairs
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.582
H-Index - 62
eISSN - 1745-6606
pISSN - 0022-0078
DOI - 10.1111/joca.12172
Subject(s) - sustainability , greenwashing , business , product (mathematics) , marketing , skepticism , status quo , consumption (sociology) , product category , advertising , point of sale , perception , economics , psychology , market economy , ecology , social science , philosophy , geometry , mathematics , epistemology , neuroscience , sociology , world wide web , computer science , biology
In today's retail marketplace, consumers receive little or no consistent brand‐level sustainability information, but this may change in the near future. Developing hypotheses based on the comparative brand processing and information disclosure literatures, we conduct a retail laboratory choice‐based experiment to test predictions related to the effects of brand‐level sustainability information on choices, product evaluations, and retailer perceptions. Compared to the status quo condition in which no sustainability information is provided for the product category at the retail point of purchase, the addition of positive (negative) sustainability information for the brand yields higher (lower) product evaluations and increased (decreased) brand choice. In addition, due to greenwashing concerns, many consumers may be skeptical of product‐level sustainability information, and we address the moderating role of this skepticism on retailer‐related perceptions.