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This paper evaluates consumers' responses to claims regarding fruit sustainability. The authors compared the effects of this factor on consumers' moral satisfaction and purchase intention with respect to 12 sustainability claims.

A mixed-model experiment was conducted with seven fruits (i.e. guava, pineapple, red apple, green apple, red grape, green grape and avocado) to evaluate the effects of the 12 sustainability claims on purchase intention through moral satisfaction, relative to a control condition.

The results show that claims of supporting local farmers are those that move consumers the most. Claims regarding local farmers' production positively affect moral satisfaction and purchase intention.

This paper takes a consumer behavior approach to sustainability, enabling organizations to consider consumer behavior outcomes that could affect their strategic investments and commitment to social responsibility.

Food-related studies have not produced consistent results with respect to the relevance that sustainability claims have for consumers. This study differs from previous studies, as it focuses on fruit, a product that is important for social and environmental sustainability issues. This study demonstrates that, in the case of fruit, sustainability arguments are meaningful to young consumers through the mediating effect of moral satisfaction. Thus, the effect of claims is predicted by the meaning these arguments have for the consumer.

Este artículo evalúa las respuestas de los consumidores a los argumentos de sostenibilidad en una fruta. Se comparan los efectos de este factor en la satisfacción moral y la intención de compra de los consumidores con respecto a 12 argumentos de sostenibilidad.

Se realizó un experimento de modelo mixto con siete frutas (guayaba, piña, manzana roja, manzana verde, uva roja, uva verde y aguacate) para evaluar los efectos de los 12 argumentos de sostenibilidad sobre la intención de compra a través de la satisfacción moral, en relación con una condición de control.

Los resultados muestran que las afirmaciones de apoyo a los agricultores locales son las que más influyen en los consumidores. Las afirmaciones relativas a la producción de los agricultores locales afectan positivamente a la satisfacción moral y a la intención de compra.

Este trabajo adopta un enfoque de la sostenibilidad basado en el comportamiento del consumidor, lo que permite a las organizaciones considerar los resultados del comportamiento del consumidor que podrían afectar a sus inversiones estratégicas y a su compromiso con la responsabilidad social.

Los estudios relacionados con la alimentación no han arrojado resultados consistentes respecto a la relevancia que los argumentos de sostenibilidad tienen para los consumidores. Este estudio difiere de los anteriores, ya que se centra en la fruta, un producto importante por cuestiones de sostenibilidad social y medioambiental. Este estudio demuestra que, en el caso de la fruta, los argumentos de sostenibilidad son significativas para los consumidores jóvenes a través del efecto mediador de la satisfacción moral. Así, el efecto de los argumentos se predice por el significado que estos tienen para el consumidor.

Consumers consider retailers' standard private labels (PLs) as relevant choices, compared to national brands (NBs), and their demand for private label products has increased significantly over the past decade. At the same time, PLs have undergone a profound transformation as retailers have enhanced their quality. The goal of this research is to investigate the impact of claims used to highlight the enhanced quality of standard PL products on consumers' perceptions and behaviours.

A between-subjects experiment, set in a store laboratory, was used to study consumers' perceptions and behaviours. The impact of six non-nutrition claims – linked, according to the self-other trade-off, either to concern for consumers' health (internal to the self) or for the environment (external to the self) – on consumers' reactions has been studied. Then, the data collected were analysed with partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM).

This research indicates that health claims retailers make to echo consumers' own concerns have positive impacts at three basic levels: the brand, the retail chain and the store. It also highlights the central role of trust in standard PLs, which, once activated by the non-nutrition claims made by retailers and the increase in the quality of standard PLs thus inferred by consumers, can improve consumers' attitude toward the food retailers' stores and reinforce their intentions to visit again and recommend them.

From a theoretical perspective, this research supplements cue utilisation theory as it applies this framework to standard PLs and establishes that consumers use extrinsic cues (i.e. communications on non-nutrition claims) to infer the quality of standard PL brand products. It also complements scant studies on retailers' corporate social responsibility (CSR) with quality aspects of their own labels as it specifies the levers (i.e. the claims) to use to improve retailers' CSR image and consumers' behaviours.

From a managerial perspective, this research highlights the superiority of retailers' claims related to consumer health and, more specifically, of claims highlighting the natural origin of ingredients. For this specific assertion, trust in the standard PL and the CSR image of the brand have direct and indirect impacts, via attitude toward the stores, on consumers' intentions to return to and to recommend these stores.

Despite the increasing importance of products as effective tools for communicating companies' CSR policies, scant research has been conducted on consumers' reactions to non-nutrition claims, which are increasingly prominent in the marketplace.

The purpose of this paper is to offer some reflection on the abuse of consumer trust and the importance of control of information in the digital market and the green market. The role of the consumer as the arbiter of the market is fundamental. The abuse of consumer confidence depends, in fact, on the spread of stereotyped messages and vague and generic formulas aimed at hiding a dangerous vacuum of protection. In both markets, it is a question of giving the consumer the necessary tools to monitor the transparency of the criteria used by the trader to classify a product according to its characteristics.

Based on the analysis of an Italian case law and the European programme, the author shows how in Italy there is a dangerous lack of consumer protection. The problem is that the green consumer, as well as the online consumer, is not able to immediately verify the accuracy of the product requirements and must be able to count on the seriousness of the professional. For this reason, the European and national authorities have provided specific rules for both markets. The new proposal of directive introduces specific rules to target unfair commercial practices that mislead consumers away from sustainable consumption choices and introduced many innovations, such as the ban on greenwashing.

This work aims to identify the tools necessary to make the information on the products offered in the digital market and those related to green products more reliable but above all to create a common methodology on which to base them. High is the risk that sustainability will become a simple marketing strategy for companies. The difficulty consists in the absence of certain and verifiable parameters by the consumer to really measure the characteristics and the quality of a product characteristic of a product compared to competing ones.

This work examines the problem of consumer protection in the digital and green market from a new perspective, comparing the information asymmetries with respect to the professionals in the two markets. Starting from the cases of greenwashing and analysing new European remedies, the author suggests for both markets, specific answers different from those required for advertising in general. The problem here is not only the truth of the message but also the vagueness and genericity. The consumer must be in a position to control the criteria used by the professional to classify products, both in the green and the digital market. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper is the original work of the author and has not been submitted elsewhere for publication.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of subjective ambivalence on ethical consumption behaviors and the role of ethical claims in reducing feelings of ambivalence toward buying ethical products.

The authors conducted two studies. In study 1, the authors carried out an online survey with a sample of 230 French consumers. The authors applied structural equation modeling with Amos to test the relationships among skepticism, ambivalence and ethical consumption behaviors. Study 2 is an experimental design in which the authors manipulated ethical claims (low – few ethical arguments vs. high – many ethical arguments) in advertising (176 French panelists). The authors tested the relationships among consumer ethical sensitivity, perceived brand ethicality, skepticism, ambivalence and intention to purchase an ethical product, depending on ethical claims in advertising.

Study 1 shows that skepticism toward advertising of ethical products amplifies feelings of ambivalence and that ambivalence reduces consumers’ willingness to adopt ethical consumption behaviors. Study 2 shows that strong claims in advertising of ethical products reduce skepticism toward advertising of ethical products and feelings of ambivalence toward buying an ethical product through perceived brand ethicality, with consumers’ ethical sensitivity positively moderating these relationships.

The two studies explore only one form of ambivalence (i.e. subjective), and the experimental study focuses on a single category of products.

The findings highlight the difficulties in promoting ethical products. Consumers need to know if a product is “really” ethical, as they may feel ambivalent toward that product. This paper shows that strong ethical claims in advertising ethical products significantly help to overcome this barrier.

Based on attribution theory and persuasion models, this research reveals how ethical claims in advertising affect feelings of ambivalence, which negatively influence consumers’ willingness to adopt ethical consumption. In addition, it follows a holistic approach to ethical consumption behaviors to explore consumers’ ambivalence.

The purpose of this paper is to synthesize insights from the emerging work in accounting on greenwashing and sustainability assurance and propose an agenda for future research in this area.

This article offers an original analysis of papers published on greenwashing and sustainability assurance research in the field of accounting. It adopts a systematic literature review and a narrative approach to analyse the dominant themes and key findings in this new and rapidly evolving field. From this overview, specific avenues for future research are identified.

In the past few years there has been a substantial spike in concern relating to greenwashing among academics, practitioners, regulators and society. This growing concern has only partly been reflected in the research literature. To date, research has primarily focused on: (1) the characteristics of firms adopting sustainability assurance, (2) the challenges facing sustainability auditors, (3) the development of appropriate assurance standards and regulations, and (4) capital market responses to greenwashing and sustainability auditing/assurance. Three key future research issues with respect to greenwashing are identified: (1) the future of standard-setter attempts to regulate greenwashing, (2) professional jockeying in sustainability reporting assurance, and (3) capital market opportunities and challenges relating to greenwashing and assurance.

Despite the profound economic and reputational impact of greenwashing and the rapid development of sustainability assurance services, research in accounting remains fragmented and emergent. This review identifies avenues offering considerable scope for inter-disciplinarity and bridging the divide between academia and practice.

The study aimed to investigate consumers’ views on criteria to be claimed for organic processed foods and information to be communicated.

An online survey was carried out among 439 adults living in Italy, users of processed organic food, to gather opinions on criteria that processing of organic food should meet and on the terms that best define “careful” processing. Next, a conjoint design was applied to examine the effects of five independent factors on consumers' ideal concept of “organic”; these were potential information on packaging, processing, additives and product quality, and the type of food product. Three products with different processing level were selected: an ultra-processed and multi-ingredient product (vegetable burger), a processed product preserved by canning (peas in glass jar) and a minimally processed product (bagged salad).

The findings highlight that consumers attach more importance to the organic food carrier than the informational messages. Information on the processing and packaging follows, with messages on quality and on additives seemingly of minor importance. Three clusters of respondents were identified: those driven primarily by the type of organic food (24.6%), those placing more emphasis on product processing (21.3%), and a third larger cluster (54.1%) who expressed almost equal importance to all the factors considered. As for the processing of organic products, “eco-friendly” was the best message.

This paper offers insights into what best outlines the ideal concept of “processed organic food” as seen by organic food consumers, to be communicated to better guide their purchasing decisions.

Sustainable manufacturing practices are excessively being practised in the industry today. The impact on sustainability is ever more visible to the stakeholders because of faster and more efficient communication due to social media and the internet. This paper aims to study the impact of greenwashing by corporations and the stakeholders’ environmental concerns on consumers’ sustainable purchase behaviour.

The relationships between the impression of “greenwash”, sustainable purchasing behaviour, green word-of-mouth and green brand loyalty were investigated in this quantitative study. Participants who made up a representative sample filled out written surveys. The variables of interest were evaluated using scales that have undergone validation. Structural equation modelling was used in mediation analysis to investigate the mediating impacts of green word-of-mouth and green brand loyalty. The goal of the study was to offer empirical proof of how these factors affected consumers’ choices for sustainable products.

Analysis of the mediating relationship of perceived customer effectiveness in the relationship between environmental concern and sustainable purchase behaviour has been studied.

This study implicates that a company that primarily markets basic green and sustainable products or services must invest in informing people about environmental concerns and that by proper practices, a lot of the harm to the environment can be reduced.

Corporate greenwashing, also called false greening, has received much public attention recently. The unethical practices by the corporations, which previously majorly went unnoticed, have also recently gained a lot of visibility. This paper is one of the early attempts towards establishing the effect of corporate greenwashing on sustainable consumer behaviour.

This study aims to gain a first explorative view on what intrinsic/extrinsic attributes a generic cup for hot beverage should possess to be perceived as eco-friendly, and how some attributes of a hot beverage could influence consumers’ purchase decision and willingness to pay (WTP) for that beverage dispensed by vending machines (VMs).

A questionnaire was developed in 2021 and sent to all students of an Italian university campus. For the first goal, students were asked to assign a score to some eco-friendly intrinsic/extrinsic attributes using a five-point Likert scale. For the second aim, a choice experiment with six scenarios was developed.

Both intrinsic and extrinsic attributes play a key role in shaping students’ opinions and preferences. Results indicate that students are attracted by the idea of a cup that communicates its environmental properties through corresponding labels and information, and it is made by materials that guarantee biodegradability, recyclability or reusability.

The research represents the first academic attempt to provide a first consumers’ viewpoint on the importance of eco-friendly attributes of cups for hot beverages able to influence consumers’ perceptions and consumption choices of hot beverages dispensed by VMs.

As a result of both shifting social concerns and stricter legislation, many companies are seeking innovative and sustainable solutions for both primary and secondary packaging. The craft beer industry has made the most notable advancements with a variety of alternatives to the traditional secondary packaging (e.g. plastic rings) used to link beer cans. Yet, despite the impact packaging has on consumer purchase behavior and the environment, secondary packaging has received far less attention in the literature. This study aims to understand consumer perceptions of craft beer secondary packaging on consumers’ willingness to buy via the underlying mechanisms of perceived packaging innovation and sustainability.

A single-factor between-subjects experiment with four conditions (secondary packaging format: Pak-Tech holder, Keel Clip holder, Glue-Pack holder, Biodegradable holder) was conducted with 354 participants to test the hypothesized serial mediation model.

The results demonstrate that none of the secondary packaging styles had a direct effect on willingness to buy, meaning that the package style alone does not influence a consumer’s purchase decisions. Critically, the results also revealed indirect effects; specifically, the Keel Clip and Glue-Pack six-pack can holders were perceived as more innovative than the Pak-Tech holder, which in turn positively influenced perceptions of packaging sustainability and subsequent willingness to buy.

The authors’ results extend the research on sustainable secondary packaging and aids craft breweries along with other beverage producers in making informed decisions as the push for sustainable packaging becomes more prominent.

Given the rapid increase in energy consumption in the residential sector in Jordan recently, the question of how to promote energy-saving behavior in Jordanian households is an emerging topic that is receiving increasing attention from scholars and academics. Generally, there is an unresolved paradox in the literature concerning electricity-saving behaviors. On one hand, numerous studies highlight energy-saving behaviors. On the other hand, recent research indicates the presence of significant untapped potential in electricity-saving behaviors. Therefore, it is useful to revisit the construct of these behaviors qualitatively to expand understanding. The study aimed to provide a better understanding of electricity energy-saving behaviors in terms of its motivations, barriers and support mechanisms from household heads' or household members' perspectives

Qualitative study in a sample of households in north Jordan was conducted in the Irbid province using grounded theory methodology. The analysis of qualitative data involved coding, followed by the integration of codes into more comprehensive categories and themes and interpreting the findings.

The results identify the motivations for households to save energy, the main barriers to indulging in electricity energy-saving behaviors, and the main support mechanisms and perceived support of electricity energy-saving behaviors

The findings bear significant implications for targeted interventions in the study area, improving motivations and addressing local barriers and can inform future policy issues by tailoring initiatives to the specific context.

This study is distinguished by being the first study that specializes in electricity energy-saving behavior of households in Jordan, using new methodology and techniques (qualitative survey).