Sustainability Marketing

Course: Sustainability Marketing | OnCourse UB

• Lection 1
  • Understanding Sustainable Consumption

  • Overview, Learning Outcomes and Structure of the Lesson

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  • The Consumer

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  • The Consumption Process

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  • Influences on Consumption

    In the following video, Professor Ken Peattie is going to tell you about a study in which hotels used different signs to get their guests to reuse their towels instead of throwing them out after the first use. The aim of the study was to find out which sign would be most successful in actually getting guests to reuse their towels. Before watching the video, click on the information buttons in the picture below and make an educated guess: Which one of the messages do you think got the most guests to reuse their towels? 

  • Now, let's find out which message actually had the most influence on consumer behaviour:

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  • Challenges in identifying and understanding the Green Consumer

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  • Review and Discussion

    1. What stages make up the overall consumption process?
    2. What range of factors can influence a particular consumer to make more sustainable choices?
    3. If I make my house highly energy efficient, but spend the money I’ve saved on a cheap holiday flight, am I a relatively green consumer?

  • Literature and References

    Belz, F.M., Peattie, K. (2012): Sustainability Marketing: A Global Perspective, 2. ed., Chichester: Wiley, p. 77-113.
    In our book, we talk in more detail about sustainable consumption behaviour and what drives it. 

    Jackson, T. (2004): Motivating Sustainable Consumption: A Review of Evidence on Consumer Behaviour and Behavioural Change, Guildford: Centre for Environmental Strategy, University of Surrey.
    This report is a very comprehensive review of all the different research studies (from a range of disciplines) to show the complexity of sustainable consumption behavior. 

    Gilg, A., Barr, S. & Ford, N. (2005): Green Consumption of Sustainable Lifestyles? Identifying the Sustainable Consumer, Futures, 37(6): 481-504.
    The article gives a good appreciation of how sustainable consumption needs to be understood from not just individual purchases but from the whole consumer lifestyle and the sustainability impacts that it has.