Sustainable consumption dilemmas

Publication

To examine which considerations play a role when individuals make decisions to purchase sustainable product varieties or not, we have conducted a large scale field experiment with more than 600 participating households.

In the experiment households can vote on whether the budgets they receive should only be spent on purchasing the sustainable product variety, or whether every household in a group is free to spend their budget on any product variety. By conducting several treatments, we tested whether people tend to view sustainable consumption as a social dilemma or as a moral dilemma.

We find little support for the hypothesis that social dilemma considerations are the key drivers of sustainable consumption behaviour. Participants seem to be caught in a moral dilemma in which they not only weigh their individual financial costs with the sustainable benefits but they also consider the consequences of restricting other people’s freedom of choice.

Complementary survey results further substantiate this claim and show that many people are reluctant to impose restrictions on their peers, but, at the same time, our results also suggest substantial support for the government to regulate the availability of unsustainable product varieties.

Authors

Vringer, Kees, Eline van der Heijden, Daan van Soest, Herman Vollebergh, Frank Dietz

Specifications

Publication title
Sustainable consumption dilemmas
Publication date
3 June 2017
Publication type
Publication
Magazine
Sustainability
Product number
2930