Global Impact, Local Action: Understanding Consumer Responses to Sustainability in a Globalized World

Synthèse

In 2025, record-breaking temperatures, escalating global political unrest, and a looming economic recession have intensified consumer anxiety, increasing pressure and expectations around their purchasing decisions worldwide. As people face these global challenges, they are more frequently choosing sustainable options, which fundamentally transform the connection between consumption and societal well-being. Sustainability is defined as "meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs". Although often linked to environmental issues, sustainability includes three interrelated dimensions: environmental (the natural world), social (people and communities), and economic (long-term prosperity), commonly referred to as the triple bottom line, or the "3Ps": people, planet, and profit.

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Thèmes proposés

• Consumer Identity and Orientation: How do consumer identities—such as global, local, or cosmopolitan—influence the choice between global sustainable brands and local eco-friendly alternatives?
• Country-of-Origin Effects: How does a product's country of origin interact with its sustainability claims? How do consumers evaluate a "green" product from a country perceived to have a poor environmental or labor record?
• Consumer Ethnocentrism and Animosity: Beyond general product evaluations, how do ethnocentric or animosity-driven tendencies specifically affect consumer receptivity to foreign sustainable innovations or environmental campaigns?
• Global vs. Local Brands: Do consumers place more trust in the sustainability promises of global brands or local brands? How do consumers perceive and respond to local brands that use sustainability as a point of differentiation against multinational competitors?
• Psychic Distance: How does the perceived psychic or cultural distance to a foreign country influence a consumer's engagement with sustainability issues originating from that country (e.g., concern for distant labor practices or environmental disasters)?
• Pro-Environmental Behavior: What are the key cross-cultural drivers of and barriers to pro-environmental behaviors? How do cultural values such as individualism/collectivism, long-term orientation, or uncertainty avoidance explain variations in consumer engagement?
• Circular Economy Practices: What cultural factors facilitate or hinder consumer participation in the circular economy as a customer, user, or end-of-life product holder? How do perceptions of hygiene, ownership, and waste influence the adoption of practices like renting, repairing, or buying secondhand or refurbished/reconditioned products across markets?
• Sustainable Communication and Persuasion: What is the cross-cultural effectiveness of different sustainability appeals (e.g., guilt, hope, social norms) in global advertising? How do consumers in high-context versus low-context cultures interpret green messaging?
• Perceptions of Greenwashing: Are consumers in some cultures more skeptical or adept at detecting corporate greenwashing? How does the level of institutional trust in a country affect consumer perceptions of the credibility of corporate sustainability claims?
• Ethical Consumption Trade-offs: How do consumers in different parts of the world prioritize and navigate trade-offs between different dimensions of sustainability (e.g., choosing between a locally produced product with more packaging versus an imported fair-trade product with a higher carbon footprint)?