We compared the effectiveness of basket goal-setting to product information strategies on sustainable consumption in a simulated online supermarket. Experiment 1 found a significant effect of basket goal setting techniques with carbon basket feedback in either numerical or graphical form on the carbon content of baskets purchased but no effect of numerical product information alone or in combination with basket CO2 information. Experiment 2 also found that basket goal setting was effective, but found no additional effect of introducing five-colour coding of the carbon footprints of either products or baskets. Experiment 3 replicated the effects of goal setting and found that repeated visits to the online supermarket led to improved learning about product carbon footprint in the basket goal setting condition. Our results suggest that goal setting techniques with feedback can reduce the carbon footprint of online shopping baskets and facilitate learning about product carbon footprint.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.