Influencing Environmentally Sustainable Consumer Choice through Information Transparency

Abstract

A number of studies have argued that recent technological and informational affordances have enabled a greater degree of transparency, which can in turn guide consumer behavior towards more sustainable patterns of consumption. This paper examines whether sustainability attribute information influences sustainable product choice. Our hypotheses are driven by construal level theory and tested through a stated choice experiment in the context of a self-developed online grocery store. Our results show that the mere disclosure of sustainability information does not influence consumers to choose a sustainable product. Rather, the effect of sustainability information on sustainable product choice depends on the sustainability attributes provided. We discuss the contributions of our study to the literature and the implications for practitioners.