Green Consumption: Behavior and Norms

Abstract

Developing more environmentally sustainable consumption and production systems depends upon consumers' willingness to engage in “greener” consumption behaviors. Research efforts have sought to identify, analyze, and understand the “green consumer.” Initial marketing and economics research, focusing on purchasing activities, has been complemented by research from fields such as industrial ecology and sociology, providing a more holistic picture of green consumption as a process. Much of the research has focused on areas with the greatest environmental impacts, namely peoples' homes and household management, their food choices and behaviors, and their transport behaviors for work, leisure, and travel. The emerging picture of green consumption is of a process that is strongly influenced by consumer values, norms, and habits, yet is highly complex, diverse, and context dependent. There are opportunities for future research that provides greater interdisciplinarity and challenges our assumptions and expectations about consumption and the nature of the consumer society.