Access to sustainable consumption is often difficult for consumers. One hurdle is the lack of transparent and understandable information about the sustainability of products. In addition to challenges, the digitalization of consumption also offers opportunities for participation in sustainable consumer markets: Can digital communication tools help to promote sustainable consumption?
ConPolicy project managers Marlene Münsch, Dr. Jana Diels and Dr. Sara Elisa Kettner together with Dr. Maike Gossen and Jens Bergener from TU Berlin investigated this question in an article in the Journal for Business, Economics & Ethics. They used a comprehensive literature review and interviews with company representatives as their methodology.
The results of the article show that, from a scientific perspective, almost all communication tools are effective in encouraging more sustainable consumption. These include sustainability sigils, sustainability scores, addressing social norms, product placements and product recommendations. Although the findings can be largely confirmed in theory from the companies' perspective, only a few of the communication tools examined are used in practice.
Possible reasons for the lack of implementation of communication tools include technical obstacles, a lack of financial incentives for companies and, in some cases, corporate strategies that are incompatible with the tools. The need for increased cooperation between science and practice becomes clear in order to strengthen the use of effective communication tools in practice and thus promote sustainable consumer decisions.
You can find the complete publication here.
Further results of this project can be found here.