Sustainable consumer behavior is the sub-discipline of consumer behavior that studies why and how consumers do or do not incorporate sustainability priorities into their consumption behavior. It studies the products that consumers select, how those products are used, and how they are disposed of in pursuit of consumers' sustainability goals.
From a conventional marketing perspective, consumer behavior has focused largely on the purchase stage of the total consumption process. This is because it is the point at which a contract is made between the buyer and seller, money is paid, and the ownership of products transfers to the consumer. Yet from a social and environmental perspective, consumer behavior needs to be understood as a whole since a product affects all stages of a consumption process.
Consumer decision process
The buyer decision process or consumer decision process is described in three or five stages. The basic, three stage model of consumption describes obtaining, consuming, and disposing of products and services. The study of consumer decision making expands these into five stages, first described by John Dewey in 1910: Problem recognition Information search Evaluation of alternatives Purchase decision Post purchase behavior
Problem recognition
Need and want recognition occur when a consumer senses a difference between what he or she perceives to be the ideal versus the actual state of affairs.
Information search
There are three key sources for searching information: personal, commercial, and public sources. Mass media, which is a public source, increasingly provides information about the environmental costs and benefits of consumption. Consumers become aware of such costs and benefits through these sources.
Evaluation of alternatives
In this stage, environmental concerns which are expressed as environmental costs, risks, and benefits, will contribute to the evaluation of options as the consumer decides what to buy. One way to evaluate more sustainable consumption is to consider the total customer cost which incurs in acquisition, use, and post-use phases.
Purchase decision
Consumers have to trade off the environmental benefits against other attributes such as price, performance, and design. In addition they may need to change their habitual manner of behavior.
Post purchase behavior
In this stage, maintenance, repair, use frequency, and type of use are of interest. For some key products such as homes, cars, and domestic appliances, much of the sustainability impact accrues after the purchase phase during use or post-use.
Post-purchase behavior may also include disposal where consumers can keep, reuse (for example by selling, trading, or giving a product to others), or dispose of a product. Some materials such as paper, glass, or metal can be recycled or reused in the production process. This phase has become important due to overloaded landfill communal waste disposal.
Consumer behavior influence
Buying and consuming an individual product like a cup of coffee might seem such a trivial action that, although it refreshes us, leaves no lasting impression or memory. However, that action combines with those of other consumers to contribute to the economic success of the coffee retailer, the overall growth in the economy, and the volume of waste with which local government must deal. It influences the demand for, and the price of, coffee beans and milk, and so influences the lives and prosperity of farmers, and shapes their investment and planting decisions. It has in terms of the demand for pesticides, fertilizer, packaging materials, and energy. The economic impact of that coffee contributes to the share price of the retailers and the levels of income and investment they will enjoy. At a national level, it contributes to national prosperity and so influences future policies on taxation and interest rates.
Consumption is an economic phenomenon that addresses our individual wants and drives the economy through our collective behavior, but it is also a social and cultural process through which we express our identity and establish our place within society. It is also a physical process that consumes resources. What we eat, how we heat our homes, and how we travel to work or for pleasure may seem like nobody's businesses but our own. However, the collective consequences of such consumption decisions are a principal driver behind climate change that will have consequences for people, countries, and species across the globe.