1,721,035 research outputs found
The circular economy and consumer behaviour: The mediating role of information seeking in buying circular packaging
No full textThe transition towards a circular economy is a crucial issue to pursue a more sustainable development. In this transition, consumers' comprehension and engagement are necessary points to guide them towards more environmentally conscious purchases. This study extends the understanding of green consumer behaviour by testing an integrated conceptual model that explores the influence of personal concern, other pro-environmental behaviours, greenwashing beliefs, consumer innovativeness, and personal predisposition to seeking information on the purchasing of circular packaging. We explored both the stand-alone and the mediating effects of information seeking. Data were collected from a questionnaire-based survey administered to a large and representative sample of Italian families, using 1,643 valid responses. We used structural equation modelling to test the proposed hypotheses. The results highlight the fundamental importance of seeking information in order to guide consumption choices that are more consistent with the circular economy. For managers, our paper suggests that packaging counts in purchasing decisions and that information is used by consumers to search for consistency between personal attitudes, other pro-environmental behaviours, and the circular attributes of packaging
Towards a sustainability facts panel? Life Cycle Assessment data outperforms simplified communication styles in terms of consumer comprehension
No full textTo make environment-friendly decisions, consumers need reliable and easy-to understand information. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) data addresses the first, but with multiple impact categories displayed in technical units, it struggles to deliver the second. This work investigates strategies to render LCA data more comprehensible, testing in an online experiment how consumers interact with it under missing information and with simplified communication styles. Participants ranked the impacts of six 3-dimensional (water consumption, non-renewable energy use and CO 2 emissions) environmental profiles of coffee. With a 3 × 3 between-subjects design, we analyzed answer accuracy under three communication styles (LCA standard units, values converted to popular references, and standardized units), the positioning of a missing information profile under three data gap patterns, and if common dimensions (those for which all options provide information) are overweighted in the decision. Our results show that: (1) Simplification does not always translate into better comprehension, as both the simplified communication styles were less accurate than LCA standard units. (2) Loss aversion was the dominant force guiding decisions under missing information, leading participants to rank the missing information profile as the least impactful in many cases. This contradicts previous work that suggested that the dominant force was the tendency to see willful deception on information omission. (3) There is no evidence that consumers try to minimize their cognitive efforts to reach a decision by overweighting common dimensions when analyzing environmental information as has been reported for other contexts. These findings suggest the viability for a “sustainability facts panel” based on standard LCA data. They also sound the alarm about the need for a uniform approach to communicate environmental performance
Plate waste in foodservice outlets: Revealing customer profiles and their support for potentially contentious measures to reduce it in Italy
No full textFood waste impacts the environment and the financial gains of foodservice establishments. Reducing it entails targeting the customers, as plate waste is the primary source of waste in these outlets. However, little is known about why some customers are more prone to not finishing their food. Furthermore, many of the measures proposed to curb plate waste can potentially generate a negative customer experience, yet no work has tried to ascertain whether diners actually disapprove of them. To investigate these issues, we surveyed 1,131 consumers in Italy. We tested the association between socio-demographic and attitudinal features and self-reported plate waste. We also measured their support for six contentious strategies for reducing food waste. Our results show that women, those who dine out more often, and those that are less aware of the social/environmental consequences of food waste tend to leave their plate unfinished more frequently. Additionally, although customers approve of doggy bags, information dissemination through awareness campaigns, and sales in last minute markets, they are resistant to portion size reduction without a corresponding price reduction, unsolicited advice on the quantity of food ordered, and limits on the number of options in the menu. Finally, support for the measures correlated strongly with awareness, and women complained significantly more about oversized portions. In addition to profiling out-of-home wasters and revealing which strategies do not affect customer experience, these results suggest the existence of a gender bias in portion size definition and underline how awareness campaigns can indirectly lead to reductions in food waste
Passively concerned: Horeca managers’ recognition of the importance of food waste hardly leads to the adoption of more strategies to reduce it
No full textRecent works have found a negative correlation between the amount of food waste generated in foodservice outlets and the extent to which managers perceive it as a relevant problem. However, it is hard to believe that food flows would be impacted by wishful thinking alone. In this paper, we try to offer an explanation to these findings by testing the associations between importance recognition, food waste measurement and compliance to waste reduction strategies in three different stages (pre-kitchen, in-kitchen and post-kitchen). We do so by fitting a generalized structural equation model in the results of a survey ran in Italy with almost 500 Horeca (Hotels, restaurants and cafeterias) managers. Our findings reveal that importance perception triggers strategies’ adoption in only one of the three stages (in-kitchen). Furthermore, this association is essentially dependent on the mediation performed by measurement, suggesting that importance recognition covers a complex pathway to arrive in reduced amounts of waste. Additional results indicate that larger and higher-end outlets tend to place more importance on food waste. Moreover, although 77% of the sample recognizes the relevance of food waste to their businesses, the incorporation of some of the main reduction strategies is still low, as 85% of the establishments report the adoption of no more than 3 out of the 9 strategies presented
Determinants and relevance of internalisation of environmental management systems
Full text linkThe internalisation of Environmental Management Systems (EMS) is raising interest among scholars. Authors have identified it as the reason of controversial results in literature about the relation between EMS and environmental performance. Often, certified companies without an internalised system are labelled to have symbolic behaviour in environmental management. However, the literature lacks of studies aimed to identify other justifications that could influence the performance of certified companies, also in absence of an internalised EMS. This study wants to analyse the role of the environmental manager satisfaction in the internalisation of EMS and in achieving environmental performance. The paper uses data from a survey of 438 EMAS registered organisations. The results show that the managers' satisfaction positively influence the environmental reputation and competitiveness also without considering the mediating role of internalisation. The paper opens new research avenues on the understanding of the real importance of EMS internalisation and on the need to further investigate the relation between EMS and performance
Life cycle assessment of emerging environmental technologies in the early stage of development: A case study on nanostructured materials
Full text linkThe use of nanostructured materials has been recently proposed in the field of environmental nanoremediation. This approach consists in using nanomaterials not directly, but as building blocks for the design of nano-porous micro-dimensional systems, overcoming the eco- and health-toxicology risks generally associated with the use of nano-sized technologies. Herein we report the use of life cycle assessment (LCA) as an eco-design tool for optimizing the production of cellulose nanosponges (CNS), nanostructured materials recently developed for water remediation purposes. LCA was applied from the acquisition of raw materials to the synthesis of CNS (from cradle-to-gate), considering three production systems, from the lab-level to a modeled scale-up system. The lab-scale LCA identified the main environmental hotspots, namely the energy-consuming steps and the final purification of the material (washing step). In a second lab-scale production, an improvement action could be implemented, switching the washing solvent from methanol to water and decreasing the washing temperature. A second LCA showed a reduced contribution to the impacts from the materials, while the global impacts remained within the same order of magnitude. A simulated scale-up of the process allowed to optimize the energy-consuming steps and the water consumption, through internal recycling. A third LCA assessed the resulting benefits and a decrease in the global impacts by two orders of magnitude. Our study contributes to the discussion of LCA community, providing a focus on the importance of scaling-up of emerging technologies, namely nanostructured porous materials, highlighting the benefits of a LCA based approach since the very beginning of product design (eco-design)
Organizational Learning for Environmental Sustainability: Internalizing Lifecycle Management
No full textImplementing a substantial environmental strategy that addresses all phases of the product lifecycle is a complex and demanding challenge that most organizations fail to convincingly overcome. Based on a case study of five frontrunner companies located in Italy and Norway, this study explores the factors that promote, or hinder, the learning process underlying the implementation of substantial measures for lifecycle management and how this can contribute to further internalizing environmental sustainability throughout the organization. The article contributes to the literature on organizational learning and environmental sustainability by showing, from a dynamic perspective, the enablers of organizational learning required for internalizing lifecycle management in organizations. A new framework for environmental sustainability based on the 4Is (intuiting, interpreting, integrating, and institutionalizing) organizational learning model is put forward in line with the concept of lifecycle management. Managerial implications are also discussed
Food traceability as driver for the competitiveness in Italian food service companies
No full textConsumers, companies and institutions have discussed the importance of food traceability in the EU for some time. The research objective is to compare perceptions of the role, importance and main “components” of food traceability in the food service field (in food service points of sale: restaurants, hotels, café, bars, catering etc.) between Italian consumers and Italian Hotel, Restaurants and Catering companies. The comparative analysis identified whether consumers and companies have the same concept of food traceability and its relevance in the hospitality field. A survey was implemented to collect feedback on seven items that can be considered as main part of food traceability. A Student t-test was used to identify the statistically significant differences in answers between consumers and the food service companies (mainly Hotels, Restaurants and Catering), and to assess the relevance of food traceability in their perceptions. An ordered logit regression was implemented to assess the determined variables on the companies and consumers behaviors. The research demonstrated that food service companies often have a biased perception of consumers’ opinions, beliefs and expectations regarding food traceability, compared with what consumers really think and want. The most original aspect of the study is the comparison of the perceptions identifying similarities and differences in the two samples
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