TY - JOUR
T1 - Carbon information on vegetables
T2 - How does it affect the buying process?
AU - Lampert, Paul
AU - Menrad, Klaus
AU - Emberger-Klein, Agnes
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
PY - 2017/11
Y1 - 2017/11
N2 - Information on the climate impact of a food product has practically not been communicated in Germany, even though it could provide important acknowledgement of producers’ actions in low-carbon production. So far, carbon labelling has predominantly been discussed without taking into account German consumers’ opinions (proven by empirical data) on this issue, even though involving the consumer in the considerations of a Carbon Label is essential for its success. Especially the question, if information on the product carbon footprint is a considerable factor within the search process of a purchase decision, was of special interest in this work. To answer these questions, we analysed consumers’ information-seeking behaviour using an information display matrix (IDM) experiment with 232 participants. The IDM is a process tracing technique which allows to track the information search in a buying process. Our results show that basically the place of origin is the most important criterion for the purchase decision, followed by price and production method (conventional/organic). In contrast, the sustainability information (i.e., carbon footprint and water consumption) are at a low level of importance. Comparing two locally produced products with the help of a multinominal logistic regression-model, it seems that the group of consumers preferring organic products is influenced in the purchase decision by the carbon footprint information. In summary it can be stated that although some people may be basically interested in carbon labelling of fresh food, the purchase decision would probably be hardly influenced by a carbon label on vegetables at present. The majority of people are more concerned about factors like origin and price so that Carbon Labelling would only be a viable option for a small group of consumers.
AB - Information on the climate impact of a food product has practically not been communicated in Germany, even though it could provide important acknowledgement of producers’ actions in low-carbon production. So far, carbon labelling has predominantly been discussed without taking into account German consumers’ opinions (proven by empirical data) on this issue, even though involving the consumer in the considerations of a Carbon Label is essential for its success. Especially the question, if information on the product carbon footprint is a considerable factor within the search process of a purchase decision, was of special interest in this work. To answer these questions, we analysed consumers’ information-seeking behaviour using an information display matrix (IDM) experiment with 232 participants. The IDM is a process tracing technique which allows to track the information search in a buying process. Our results show that basically the place of origin is the most important criterion for the purchase decision, followed by price and production method (conventional/organic). In contrast, the sustainability information (i.e., carbon footprint and water consumption) are at a low level of importance. Comparing two locally produced products with the help of a multinominal logistic regression-model, it seems that the group of consumers preferring organic products is influenced in the purchase decision by the carbon footprint information. In summary it can be stated that although some people may be basically interested in carbon labelling of fresh food, the purchase decision would probably be hardly influenced by a carbon label on vegetables at present. The majority of people are more concerned about factors like origin and price so that Carbon Labelling would only be a viable option for a small group of consumers.
KW - carbon footprint
KW - consumer behavior
KW - sustainable consumption
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85020420113&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1111/ijcs.12375
DO - 10.1111/ijcs.12375
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85020420113
SN - 1470-6423
VL - 41
SP - 618
EP - 626
JO - International Journal of Consumer Studies
JF - International Journal of Consumer Studies
IS - 6
ER -