Page 162 - Sustainability Communication Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Theoritical Foundations

13 Communicating Sustainable Consumption 145

the production, use and networking of information technology itself is extremely
material and energy intensive (Reisch 2003).
There is not enough empirical data to demonstrate how behaviour in a particular
basic needs area relates to other areas, e.g., whether there are so-called ‘wedge
behaviours’ that allow for a ‘foot-in-the-door’ strategy to other consumption fields.
Also, it is still empirically unclear how powerful ‘spillover effects’ between different
areas of consumption are (Thøgersen and Crompton 2009), let alone how such effects
could be systematically exploited in communication strategies. Moreover, in spite of
years of research, there is little valid knowledge about the so-called consumer ‘atti-
tude-behaviour gap’ (Young et al. 2009). That attitudes have only a very moderate
effect on actual behaviour has been well studied in social psychology and is now a
well-known fact about human behaviour. The dominant explanation for the diver-
gence between attitude and behaviour is the ‘low-cost hypothesis’, i.e., consumers
live up to their attitudes when the perceived costs of such a choice are low. Yet, the
costs argument has been supplemented by the ‘high-justice hypothesis’, which takes
into account intrinsic motivation and moral imperatives such as the principle of fair-
ness (Coad et al. 2009; Montada and Kals 1995). Behavioural economics and eco-
nomic psychology have empirically shown that the quest for ‘fair deals’ is at the
heart of most human transactions (Thaler and Sunstein 2008). This would mean that
once the consumer has understood the necessity of sustainably oriented action he or
she would not need any further private benefits or material incentives to choose more
sustainable service packages. There is still however a need for fair conditions. In
many cases the consumer makes a conditional commitment, based on certain ideas
about justice, but will only act upon it when certain actions have been taken in
advance by other consumers, by the government or by companies. Once these condi-
tions have been fulfilled, they still have to be effectively communicated.
A further reason why environmental and social awareness has little relevance for
consumer behaviour is that consumers feel that the government and business bear a
greater responsibility for environmental and development problems than they do.
This is compounded by consumers being subject to the ‘illusion of marginality’.
This type of illusion is familiar to environmental and risk psychology, but it is also
highly relevant for the conceptualisation of successful sustainable consumption
communication strategies. Furthermore, recent research in behavioural economics
and sustainable choice has shown that consumer behaviour is much more dependent
on the stimuli and barriers of the immediate choice contexts (e.g., the stimuli and
information provided at the point of sale; the accessibility, affordability and avai-
lability of sustainable alternatives in a neighbourhood) and is influenced to a far
greater extent by human biases and heuristics than has been assumed in consumer
science. Experimental and survey evidence implies that a smart-choice architecture
making use of ‘choice editing’ (Yates 2008) and ‘sustainable defaults’ (e.g. green
power as the ‘default’ electricity supply or healthy food served in school canteens
unless another choice is exercised) is at least as effective in ‘nudging’ consumers
into more sustainable choices as are efforts to influence consumers’ knowledge,
preferences and attitudes via communication tools (Thaler and Sunstein 2008).