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The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of unsubstantiated claims that a product is “ecological.”

A between-subjects experimental design was used in which the absence versus the presence of an (unsubstantiated) ecological claim regarding a product was a manipulated factor. The design comprised four products, representing non-ingestible/ingestible products and familiar/unfamiliar brands. These two aspects were seen as potentially moderating factors with respect to the impact of ecological claims.

The results show that ecological product claims boosted beliefs that a product is indeed ecological. This influence was not moderated by non-ingestible/ingestible and familiar/unfamiliar product characteristics. Moreover, ecological product claims enhanced conceptually related product beliefs, namely, beliefs that the product is natural, environmentally friendly and healthy. Ecological claims also had a positive impact on the attitude toward the product.

The results imply that influencers who want a receiver to believe that a product is ecological can expect to be successful by merely claiming that a product is ecological.

From a societal point of view, however, and in an era in which “alternative facts” and “post-truths” are becoming the subject of increasing concern, the results are problematic, because they underline that customers can be made to believe in claims even though no supporting evidence is provided.

The results imply that influencers who want a receiver to believe that a product is ecological can expect to be successful by merely claiming that a product is ecological. From a societal point of view, however, and in an era in which “alternative facts” and “post-truths” are becoming the subject of increasing concern, the results are problematic, because they underline that customers can be made to believe in claims even though no supporting evidence is provided.

Identifies key elements of eco‐design and discusses how they could be implemented. Special attention is given to tools for eco‐design. Describes a case in which these elements were implemented and draws further conclusions.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on ecological consumption and test the effect of social value orientation on ecological consumption. What is more, this paper explores how Chinese consumers choose between prosocial and non-prosocial products under the influence of Chinese face culture.

The authors assume that social value orientation will change individual’s ecological consumption through the in-group identification, and simultaneously predict that the influence in pro-self and pro-social consumer groups will vary. Furthermore, Chinese face consciousness will moderate the relationship between ecological consumption and social value orientation. Online research and intercept survey are employed to collect data. In total, 600 questionnaires were distributed.

The results indicate that pro-social individuals prefer sustainable consumption than pro-self-individuals, and in-group identification mediates the effect of social value orientation on ecological consumption. Interestingly, pro-self-individuals’ behaviors have changed dramatically by the influence of face consciousness.

The authors discovered that social value orientation has a deep impact on ecological consumption through in-group identification. The authors tested and verified the dominance of Chinese face culture. Besides, four key elements of China’s “face” construct are proposed, namely, holism, synergy, synchronicity and dynamics, which enlarge the horizon of the theory of face.

Whilst country-of-origin (COO) effects have been studied extensively since the 1960s, little research has explored these effects with respect to ecological considerations. The purpose of this paper is to explore the COO ecological image (CEI) construct by defining its facets across consumers and professionals from two different countries, namely, France and Australia.

Because of the exploratory nature of the research, the authors used two qualitative techniques, namely, semi-structured interviews and focus groups.

Findings indicate the CEI construct is composed of eight dimensions, namely, policy, technological, economic, people characteristics, natural, climatic, historical and eco-product features.

The research provides insights into the CEI construct and justifies future studies to develop a scale measure for it. However, the generalisability of the results must be considered limited due to the qualitative exploratory nature of the study.

The research offers implications for companies and policymakers by allowing them to understand how consumers form a CEI. It suggests new applications respective to how to leverage positive aspects of a CEI and how to mitigate negative ones.

The study extends the literature on COO by identifying the possible dimensions of the CEI construct, thus providing better insights into the little-explored link between COO and sustainable products.

The purpose of this paper is to identify links between the components involved in ecodesign orientations (EDOs) and the integration of ecological criteria into Scandinavian wooden furniture industries. The purpose of identifying these links is to recognize possibilities and gaps in wooden furniture product development and branding opportunities to deepen customer engagement with the Scandinavian country-of-origin (COO) brand.

The application of ecodesign in Scandinavian wooden furniture industries was studied using survey data gathered from Nordic wood furniture designers. Factor analysis was used to identify the general types of Scandinavian design styles (SDSs) and EDOs implemented in the Scandinavian wooden furniture industry. The SDS and EDO impacts on the integration of ecological design criteria were modelled using logistic regression analysis.

The integration of ecological criteria by Nordic designers influences both the perspectives on material and process optimization and the end use of wooden furniture as well as the recycling of these products. In contrast, our results showed no statistical evidence of connections between different SDS types and the integration of ecological criteria in design. Recognition of special needs of customers valuing both high Scandinavian design and EDO could provide strategic opportunities for wooden furniture industries to recognize new global market potential and enhance their competitiveness.

Developing business opportunities for wooden furniture marketed under the Scandinavian COO brand, and forming a better understanding of customer expectations on the ecological information related to different wooden furniture SDS types, is needed. This would support developing new ecodesign strategies across the whole industry and enhancing value proposition of Scandinavian wooden furniture within different customer groups.

Research findings on the intersection of industrial brand design and ecodesign are still scarce, especially with a special focus on strategic management and sustainability marketing of companies. The results of our study provide entirely new insights on the topic especially in the context of Scandinavian wooden furniture industry.

The paper aims to determine whether people with different eating patterns, specifically meat-free diets, engage in other types of eco-friendly behaviours and whether the meanings attributed to food allow for a better understanding of this relationship.

Data were collected between 2019 and 2020, on the island of Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain. Different instruments were used: The meaning of food in life questionnaire (MFLQ; Arbit et al., 2017); the dietarian identity questionnaire (DIQ; Rosenfeld and Burrow, 2018) and the frugal behaviour scale (Muiños et al., 2015) and two items were used to identify the frequency with which participants purchased ecological or second-hand products. The final sample consisted of 202 participants who ate a vegan, vegetarian or omnivorous diet. Spearman's Correlations were performed and the Kruskal–Wallis statistical test was used.

People with a vegan or vegetarian diet purchased ecological (p ≤ 0.001) and second-hand products (p = 0.006) more frequently compared to omnivores. Furthermore, the meanings attributed to food, specifically the moral, sacred and health meanings, were related to differences in eating patterns (p ≤ 0.001), while also being related to some eco-friendly purchase and consumption behaviours. Lastly, frugal behaviour was only found to be related to the health factor of meaning in food (rs = 0.27).

The measurement used to evaluate the purchase of ecological and second-hand products is very simple/the role of the meaning of food in guiding more eco-friendly behaviours and promoting less ecologically impactful eating patterns.

The study provides valuable information on how vegan, vegetarian and omnivorous diets relate to eco-friendly behaviours.

The market of ecological products is growing exponentially at global level, however, there are very few studies focused on the international marketing strategies of eco‐firms. Seeks to address the issues.

On the basis of the information collected during interviews conducted with six British and six Romanian eco‐firms with international activity, the main opportunities and challenges for international green marketing are identified and analysed.

The findings show important differences between the Romanian and the British firms, mainly determined by the level of development of their domestic market. The Romanian firms usually export ecological products using foreign agents, while the British firms sell internationally using their own brand name and attempting to control the foreign distribution channels. The similarity of the foreign market selection process applied by the UK eco‐firms has allowed the development of a tentative theoretical framework in the second part of the paper.

The paper provides insights into the issues surrounding the marketing of ecological products in the international marketplace.

As emphasized in the previous chapter, sustainability marketing entails activities that include all levels of management in small and medium enterprises; that is, strategic, operational and tactical. The role of marketing activities of a sustainable nature involves building customer satisfaction and generating profit for an enterprise, while simultaneously taking into consideration the impact of such activities on society and environment as a whole. Combining all those areas poses a serious challenge to contemporary SMEs. Nevertheless, an effective use of sustainability marketing principles enables companies to achieve the above-specified tasks and gain a strong position in the market over the long term. The nature of the relationship established with various market entities ensures that strong position, because the use of sustainability marketing is equivalent to adopting a relationship-oriented attitude.

Fulfilling the tasks of sustainability marketing requires the employment of tools from the sustainability marketing mix, which comprises the following: sustainability in product, price, distribution, promotion and personnel. The adoption of sustainable development principles by SME marketing departments does not fundamentally change the basic properties of the tools in the mix, that is their complementarity and the resultant synergy effect, but it expands the scope of their impact on the society and environment. This chapter presents a discussion on the nature and specificity of individual tools in the sustainability marketing mix.

The aim of this study is to identify what values and lifestyles best explain environmentally friendly behaviours.

This paper adapts the Values and Lifestyle scale and the Environmental and Attitude and Knowledge scale to the Spanish context in order to describe the ecological consumer profile. The data were obtained from a questionnaire handed out to a random sample of 573 individuals. With the information obtained, and after the scales validation process, a structural equation analysis has been conducted.

Findings of the study highlight that environmental patterns and self‐fulfilment values are those that best characterise the ecological market segment. This group of consumers is characterised by their self‐fulfilment feeling. They are people who always try to improve themselves and take actions which pose a new challenge for them. They are also characterised by having an ecological lifestyle, that is, environment consciousness, selecting and recycling products and taking part in events to protect the environment. This kind of consumer would be interested in firms that are committed to the environment and launch new products, showing them as a new and exciting experience.

The results of this study might interest consumer behaviour researchers and those firms that care about the ecological consumers. Further research is needed including new psychographic variables.

Ecological agriculture is a modern agriculture with a high degree of economic efficiency and determines a new life philosophy at the producers’ and consumers’ level. At present, in Romania an intensive agriculture and an unintended biological agriculture is practised because of producers’ lack of money which does not allow them to buy the necessary chemical products. There are only a few ecological farms in Romania and their products are exported to a large extent. In the future the spreading of ecological farms and of ecological agriculture will succeed in creating the conditions for an institutional framework which takes into account the regional ecological situation. The institutional framework must stimulate and sustain the Romanian agricultural producers in the development of this agriculture type, because there is an important external demand and, in addition, through educating Romanian consumers.