Browsing by Subject "sustainable consumption patterns"

Earth’s overshoot day marks the date when humanity’s ecological footprint exceeds Earth’s biocapacity for the year. As the day fell on earlier every year it shows that our current consumption pattern is unsustainable. One of the main human sources of greenhouse gas emissions is related to household consumption and thus companies play an important role in developing consumption practices more sustainable for consumers as they are the main providers of products and services. This research examines the ways three Finnish companies guide consumers towards environmentally sustainable choices as well as drivers and barriers related to consumer guidance. The objective is to enlighten companies’ consumer guiding methods as part of corporate responsibility and understand which factors encourage and hinder companies to guide consumers. The research was conducted as a qualitative multiple-case study. The case companies were Valio, S Group’s grocery stores and Fazer. The research data was collected via companies’ sustainability reports and focused semi-structured interviews by interviewing the case companies’ employees working with corporate responsibility, environmental management and communication. The data was analyzed by data-driven content analysis. The findings show that the case companies use guiding methods to steer consumers to environmentally sustainable choices: information provision, choice editing, nudging and financial incentives. The current trends related to sustainability and responsibility as well as a potential competitive advantage, the protection of brand image, the benefits of a forerunner, and a corporate strategy in which sustainability is an integral part encourage companies to guide consumers. Whereas, the principle of consumers’ freedom of choice, the responsibility of a big operator as well as risks related to the development of innovations and being a forerunner cause tensions in consumer guidance. The results confirm that various tensions are related to guiding consumers towards sustainability. Especially, the concept of consumers’ freedom of choice is firmly embedded in the mindset of business. Therefore, future research could examine the ways to bring these tensions and underlying contradictions more strongly into the public discussion to find solutions to promote sustainable consumption for consumers among companies.