At Home with Sustainability: From Green Default Rules to Sustainable Consumption

Abstract

Abstract:Although it is often assumed that default rules affect change without awareness, this paper suggests that contrast with the default and transition into conscious adoption of the default design may be the starting point to establish long-term changes in consumer behavior. Despite the rooting of default rules in subconscious decision-making, this research finds that, ultimately, awareness drives the demand necessary for the creation of sustainable consumption. Whereas direct appeal to individuals has a disappointing level of influence on sustainability choices, it is understood that green consumers do come from somewhere. Green default rules offer interesting prospects for sidestepping the drawbacks of direct marketing to individuals. Under green default rules, behavior is guided by a default, such as utilities automatically sending customers renewables-sourced instead of fossil-fuel-based energy. To act otherwise requires additional effort and is less likely. Motivated by a need to understand how defaults might bridge standards and sustainable consumption, I investigate how organizational processes potentially lead from standardized green default rules to individual awareness that can spread and facilitate sustainable consumption. This paper examines the Active House sustainable building demonstrations in Europe in order to understand how (1) communications and market creation and (2) responsible, user-centered experimentation are organized to move from defaults to sustainable consumption.

Sustainable Consumption and Production: Exploring the Links with Resources Productivity in the EU-28

“…Secondly, the analysis carried out suggests that the factor called resource consumption (RESO-COMPS) has a positive and significant effect, although to a lesser extent, on their productivity (RES-PROD-DMC), which would validate Hypothesis 3. This result agrees with that stated by Hale [12] and Mont and Plepys [11], in the sense that an efficient use of resources will tend to increase resource productivity and allow reducing resource scarcity risk, with the consequent lower environmental impact. In the same way, it was observed that public and private investment in research and development, present in the factor in a relevant way with the variables Intramural R&D expenditure (GERD)-Government and Intramural R&D expenditure (GERD)-Business, allows us to face the uncertainty behind climate change in a manner consistent with sustainable economic growth, supporting the rapid technological change necessary as indicated by Baker and Solak [42].…”

“…Mont and Plepys [11] suggested that government intervention was required to change the present framework in order to encourage producers to seek business opportunities based on less resource-intensive product-service offers. Hale [12] showed consumers´environmental awareness as the main driver to create sustainable consumption and pointed out the need to strengthen policies related to this issue.…”

“…In this context, it can be concluded that there is not unanimity about the main drivers of sustainability in the EU-28. Factors related to specific actions were identified in previous literature (for example, circular economy in Haas et al [6], Figge et al [17], Di Maio et al [18]; smarter consumption and learner production in Nash [7]; and governmental intervention in Hale [12] and Mont and Plepys [11]) but there is still not a global framework.…”

“…Finally, the importance of establishing sustainable consumption patterns for achieving sustainability goals has been raised ( [11,12,31]). In this sense, it has been pointed out that the producers' and consumers' awareness of the environmental effects in their production and consumption choices is a key issue.…”

Pushing for Sustainability through Technology: administrative consensuality by default and online dispute resolutions tools

“…be good. 141 The recognition of the power of the standard options influences the way cell phones are configured, the option for health plans, automatic revocation of subscriptions and even environmental preservation, 142 based on the idea of green by default or sustainable 143 by default. 144 The second principle is the presumption of human fallibility itself.…”