Journal of Sustainable Marketing

Introduction

Consumption is, quite literally, destroying our planet. Earth Overshoot day, the date by which humanity has used up all the biological resources that the Earth generates during the entire year, fell on August 2 in 2023 (Earth Overshoot Day, 2023) – a clear signal that we are consuming well beyond our means. Unfettered neoliberalism, along with the yoking of economic growth to more and more consumption, has raised living standards for many worldwide but at grave ecological and human cost. As the world tries to dial back from the perils of global warming, the specter of ever more frequent pandemics, and skyrocketing inequities between the rich and the rest, the curbing of a host of consumption-related practices, particularly in the world’s wealthiest and most populous nations, has become a vital but as of yet unrealized goal. Rampant consumerism manifests as a problem not only in energy emissions and usage, but also in water usage, high-meat diets, unsustainable clothing purchases, and countless other ways. In many nations, wealthy and otherwise, the market mentality has seeped into the collective psyche, including value systems, promoting consumption as not just a panacea for a host of psychological and social ills but even a virtue.

Despite all the actions taken towards a sustainable future, we are missing the complete picture; this norm of unsustainable consumption needs to be changed, as our planet simply cannot keep up with such great resource demands. With humanity projected to double material resource use by 2050 under the “business as usual” scenario (Bringezu et al., 2017) , a sustainable future must involve lowering individual, social, and environmental harm. Interestingly, we consumer behavior scholars have traditionally focused on developing theories and strategies aimed at selling more to consumers. But with the tables now turning, we need to start asking: how can we get consumers to consume less, consume better (i.e., more sustainably) and dispose better, thereby lowering our ecological footprint and contributing to greater and more equitable societal wellbeing. Trying to find novel, creative, actionable, and theoretically sound answers to this essential question was the motivation for our roundtable at the Society for Consumer Psychology (SCP) Conference in Puerto Rico, March 2023, “When Less is More: Enhancing Well-being by Reducing Consumption.”

This commentary is an integrative summary of our discussion at the SCP Roundtable. Each of us brought distinct but often complementary perspectives on the topic to generate a discussion that touched on three essential questions about Consuming Less, Consuming Better (from here onwards CLCB): (1) what is CLCB (i.e., what do we mean by CLCB)? (2) who is/are responsible for CLCB (i.e., who are the relevant stakeholders)? and, most importantly, (3) how do we get people to CLCB? This commentary is, thus, organized around these three questions (What, Who, and How). Each section conveys the basic points made and research insights discussed at the Roundtable, pointing to, where relevant, future research directions. In that, a key objective of this commentary is to serve as a springboard for conceptually rigorous scholarship that helps the world consume less, consume better.

What is CLCB? Shifting Consumption Behaviors for Sustainability

Consumption, and particularly the waste it generates, has long been a major contributor to environmental degradation, with profound implications for ecosystems and human health; it depletes natural resources and leads to biodiversity loss and habitat destruction. For instance, disposable plastics transform into toxic microplastics, killing marine animals and polluting oceans and landfills. Against this backdrop, the notion of CLCB encapsulates, at its broadest, the need for people to shift to more conscious, intentional, and sustainable consumption behaviors. To date, the most specific and pervasive manifestation of this shift is the principle of “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle,” which refers to minimizing the amount of consumption waste generated, reusing products that still have usable parts, and putting old, discarded products to new uses. Of these, the greatest societal and business emphasis to date has been on recycling, reflected also in the considerable scholarly insights into the drivers of such behavior, with the aim of encouraging it (Winterich, Nenkov, & Gonzales, 2019).

Gaining in importance, but less studied, are reuse behaviors, which can involve repairing, refurbishing, or repurposing items to give them an extended or even second life (Godfrey, Price, & Lusch, 2022). Reuse can be conceptualized to occur across time and/or across consumers. Reuse across time emphasizes the ability of the same consumer to repeatedly use a particular good for a prolonged period. Such reuse can be achieved, for instance, through consumer investment in product repair and refill, which extend the life of a particular good and limit the need for excessive packaging (Nenkov, 2024; Vadakkepatt et al., 2021). Reuse across consumers emphasizes the repeated use of a particular good across multiple consumers, such as in sharing economies and rental markets, both of which are rooted in the phenomenon of non-ownership (Eckhardt et al., 2019; Vadakkepatt et al., 2021). Notably, while our understanding of sharing economies and, to a lesser extent, rental markets is growing, scant consumer research has focused thus far on understanding the consumer repair decision, even as more organizations offer repair services.

Essential as recycling and reusing are, reducing the amount of waste generated in the first place, by using fewer resources and consuming less, offers greater environmental advantages when contrasted with these behaviors. This entails encouraging individuals, businesses, and communities to be mindful of their consumption habits, avoid unnecessary consumption (i.e., consumption that is not clearly related to “needs” like food, water, sleep, safety, but to “wants” such as in the domains of fashion, cosmetics, and travel) and minimize waste production. For example, using products with minimal packaging, opting for durable goods instead of disposable ones, and conserving resources like water and energy all contribute to waste reduction. Of course, curtailing consumption is more challenging than recycling or even reusing as the very act of consuming triggers dopamine responses, reinforcing consumption behaviors (Hartston, 2012). Beyond its biological effects, consumption is socially and cognitively rewarding, shaping individuals' self-concept and identity while communicating this identity to others (Clair & Forehand, 2020; Gao, Wheeler, & Shiv, 2009; Huang & Fishbach, 2021). It is thus imperative for consumer behavior researchers to identify the ‘sweet spot’ at the intersection of maximizing consumer wellbeing and reducing consumption.

Clearly, more consumer research is needed in our efforts to maximize recycling, reusing, and reducing, as we discuss in the How section. At the same time, though, there is an opportunity here to update more fundamentally how we think about and study consumption behavior in the interest of jointly maximizing consumer and planetary well-being. Vital to this is a more comprehensive and granular articulation of all the disparate behaviors characterizing CLCB, spanning four broad action categories: Acquisition, Sharing, Renewal and Disposal. The specific behaviors comprising each of these four categories are likely to have, as laid out in this commentary and summarized in Table 1, distinct but overlapping barriers and facilitators, pointing to opportunities for investigations into maximizing all of these behaviors.

At a more meso level, this fundamental update entails the articulation of alternative consumption models that provide a theoretical understanding of rental and sharing economies, non-ownership, and participation in buy nothing groups. More specifically, investigations into the psychological rewards of packaging for consumers would help us understand how firms can reduce packaging, and its accompanying costs, and focus on the contents. More generally, in order to foster consumer wellbeing and promote responsible consumption, it is essential to address the underlying issues of thoughtless and impulsive purchasing behavior, which often result in the acquisition of unnecessary items. This calls for the development of new paradigms, such as one focused on positive consumption, emphasizing consumption patterns that benefit both consumers and society, while incentivizing sustainable practices among companies. To achieve this, it is necessary to expand the scope of research beyond traditional company-related outcomes and include consumer-related factors, such as the impact of purchases on individual wellbeing, positive emotions, health, social relationships, life meaningfulness, and eudemonic happiness. As well, it is crucial to examine the societal and environmental consequences of consumption, appraising the extent to which purchases contribute positively versus negatively to broader societal and environmental well-being.

Such an effort would include the rethinking of our current models of consumer decision-making, which are overwhelmingly premised on an often reflexive connection between need recognition and consumption. There is a great deal of consumer research that establishes this link, exacerbated by consumers’ tendency to underweight opportunity costs (i.e., not

asking what else can we do instead of consuming this). Instead, we need to explore alternative activities such as creation (the recombination or (re)generation of existing goods and services), connection (the access of existing, or development of new, interpersonal relationships), and clarification (the process of reaching a deeper understanding of consumer needs to identify the most efficient and effective solutions), which may fulfill consumer needs without relying on material consumption. Key questions to consider pertain to the contingent extent of the automatic link between need recognition and consumption, the natural inclination of consumers towards the more generative, non-consumptive activities, the types of needs best met by such activities, and the unique benefits derived from replacing consumption with alternative actions. How and in what circumstances could creation, connection and clarification replace consumption? Specifically, how might individuals be prompted to consider responding to needs by creating, rather than simply using up resources? Could individuals achieve higher satisfaction by connecting with others rather than consuming? Might individuals be able to satisfy needs more effectively by taking their time to clarify the true nature of their needs as opposed to consuming?

A natural question arises, then, about who/what entities are responsible for these fundamental consumption shifts. We discuss this “who” question next.

Who Is Responsible for Consuming Less, Consuming Better?

The three groups ultimately responsible for CLCB are consumers, businesses and the public sector (government, non-profits). Our discussion of how, when, and why these groups are both individually and collaboratively responsible revealed four basic themes. The first, and most basic, theme emphasized the necessity of transitioning from individual-level micro solutions to transformative business-level strategies to address systemic environmental and social challenges effectively. Researchers have thus far focused primarily on individual consumer responsibility and inducing micro-level changes in behavior rather than examining the broader systemic context (Chater & Loewenstein, 2023). However, relying solely on individual consumer actions has its limits: research shows that consumers are not only loss averse (Mrkva, Johnson, Gächter, & Herrmann, 2020) , unwilling to give up their consumption experiences, but also often quite at sea as to how to CLCB (Johnson, Sugerman, Morwitz, Johar, & Morris, 2024). Placing exclusive responsibility on consumers also disregards systemic issues entrenched in corporate practices and government policies contributing to environmental and social problems (Winterich, Reczek, & Makov, 2023)

Thus, there is a need to move beyond undue reliance on individual consumer action, and, critically, consumer responsibilization for CLCB, to articulate transformative business-level solutions, including new and innovative business strategies and models such as rental services, shifts to a refill economy, and accessible circular economy programs (Tari & Trudel, 2024), which, together, induce consumers to CLCB. These strategies are not only more viable, with companies of all sizes able to adopt them within shorter timeframes, but they also offer significant advantages not only in terms of environmental gains (e.g., reducing carbon emissions and limiting consumption waste), but also in terms of economic benefits (e.g., operational efficiency and cost savings), social benefits (e.g., job creations), and strategic benefits (e.g., driving innovation and setting industry standards) (Nenkov, 2024). To enable such a shift, consumer researchers need to broaden their investigations beyond the mere promotion of sustainable products, which may not actually offset the consumption of less sustainable ones, to, among others, better understand the impact of and support for government policies aiming to add environmental costs to market prices, such as Extended Producer Responsibility and carbon taxes.

Underpinning this transition from consumers to businesses and governments is the basic question of who bears responsibility, moral and otherwise – and, importantly, feels responsible - for lowering the ecological footprint of consumption and, more broadly, solving societal issues tied to consumption. This comprises the second theme, pertaining to the drivers and dynamics of responsibility allocation between consumers, companies, and governments, and the accompanying need to understand when and how responsibility shifts occur and how, more generally, it can be best shared to drive CLCB. Both consumers and businesses have clear incentives to “pass the CLCB buck” to one another, so it is important to understand both when consumers should – and, in fact, do – feel responsible for sustainability and when they should not, despite the attempts of business to pass the responsibility onto them, claiming often the primacy of consumer demand. This is complicated by recent findings that consumers are particularly sensitive, and react adversely, to any indication that a company might be passing off what they perceive to be its responsibility on to them (Goenka & Bagchi, 2024). Understanding how and when responsibility is shared between businesses and consumers is inherently challenging and it depends on a host of consumer, context, product, and industry specific factors. For instance, when businesses do accept responsibility, do consumers join in to do their share or simply let businesses do all the heavy lifting? What strategies and tactics, including nudges, might ensure sharing rather than the passing of responsibility? And what mechanisms underlie consumers’ enthusiasm, and assumption of responsibility, for CLCB?

A third, more specific theme pertains to the responsibility and role of marketing in getting consumers to CLCB. Central to this is the need for businesses to develop innovative marketing practices to effectively communicate their sustainability performance to consumers trying to CLCB. In the face of continued consumer skepticism about the actions and intentions of businesses in this regard, exacerbated by the prevalence of greenwashing, there is a clear need for systems that incentivize and reward truly sustainable companies, distinguishing them from both laggards and imposters. To this end, technologies like blockchain can play a powerful role, offering traceability information that empowers consumers to minimize the negative externalities of their purchases (Du, Akremi, & Jia, 2023). For instance, Dutch retailer Albert Heijn's implementation of a blockchain-based solution exemplifies how marketers can leverage this technology to let consumers easily track the journey of products, such as orange juice, from the farm to the retailer (Ahold Delhaize , 2018). In line with this, future research should delve into how to best concretely communicate the impact CLCB might have (e.g. through collective efficacy messaging, analogies); this will help make marketers more effective players in this arena.

The fourth theme circles back to consumers, focusing on the inherent imbalance in the responsibility for and ability to CLCB imputed to different socioeconomic groups globally. This theme centers around the prevalent notion today that only affluent consumers can afford to be “green” by purchasing products like electric cars and organic food—seen as markers of class privilege—overlooking the barriers low-income consumers face in accessing sustainable options. This division, described byBourdieu (1984) as a form of “distinction,” points squarely to the divorcing of sustainability concerns from social welfare ones when, in fact, they are intertwined. Indeed, the dramatic rise in income disparities since the 1980s is mirrored in carbon emissions, with the wealthiest 1% responsible for 15% of global CO₂ emissions, contrasted with the lower 50% contributing 10% (Bruckner, Hubacek, Shan, Zhong, & Feng, 2022). This correlation highlights the social dimension of CLCB, raising research-worthy questions about the underexplored effects of income redistribution on CLCB. Investigating how income redistribution impacts high-income versus low-income groups' spending and sustainable practices can offer insights into CLCB at both individual and systemic levels. Moreover, exploring political and social narratives around CLCB and redistribution can help illuminate broader equity issues. For example, the debate over whether it is fair to expect developing nations to pursue green growth under stricter constraints than those historically faced by developed countries points to the need for a nuanced understanding of CLCB that considers both global inequities and, more specifically, capabilities. This complex global landscape underscores the need to examine, more broadly, the interplay between sustainability, social justice, and economic policies in our efforts to understand the “who” question pertaining to CLCB.

Of course, regardless of the specific configuration of responsibility across consumers, firms, and the public sector in driving CLCB across different contexts, the focal behaviors of consuming less and consuming better are ultimately engaged in by the – eponymous – consumers. Thus, we end with a discussion of the most crucial question in our quest to motivate consumer research on CLCB: how can consumers be encouraged to CLCB?

How Can Consumers Consume Less, Consume Better?

As consumer researchers, our work, together, points to a myriad of routes through which consumers’ perceptions, thoughts, and feelings interact with their identity and social preoccupations towards better and less consumption, with concomitant opportunities to shape such behaviors through marketing. We discuss these next.

Conclusion

As the detrimental impact of consumption on our planet becomes increasingly evident, the imperative to address unsustainable consumption practices has never been more urgent. While traditional consumer behavior research has predominantly focused on strategies to sell more, there is a pressing need for consumer researchers to understand the actors and the psychological levers that can effect less, and better, consumption. Our roundtable discussion at the Society for Consumer Psychology Conference in Puerto Rico was one step in this line of inquiry, and this commentary summarizes the insights, questions and future research directions pertaining to a deeper, more actionable understanding of CLCB.

Funding statement

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Conflict of interest

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/orpublication of this article.