The Conscious Consumption Act and the Psychology of Eco-labeling
PREFACE: Three years ago I wrote my Public Policy Masters Thesis proposing eco-labeling legislation I called the Conscious Consumption Act. What began as a policy proposal, became a deeper analysis of the psychology of eco-labeling and some idea for how to do it most effectively. A few years later it seems like more and more groups are looking into this concept of how to capture the full environmental footprint of a product on the packaging to influence consumer behavior. Thus, I figured now would be a great time to blow off the digital dust and share my work with the world, for whatever it’s worth. Here’s to a world of conscious consumers, Eric
STANFORD UNIVERSITY
Eric Wilburn
Public Policy Program
THE CONSCIOUS CONSUMPTION ACT
August 21st, 2018
ABSTRACT
Perhaps the greatest threat to human well-being is current consumption behavior. We consume products from which the personal benefit we derive is far outweighed by the negative costs, largely environmental, to both ourselves and society. Ideally, prices would influence consumption decisions by incorporating the full lifecycle environmental costs to society into the price of a product. But most initiatives to incorporate environmental costs into product prices are failing. A complementary approach to influence consumption patterns is to provide the consumer with information as to the lifecycle environmental impact of a product in a manner that intrinsically motivates the consumer to change their purchasing behavior.
I propose legislation, the Conscious Consumption Act, that mandates all companies divulge information representing the environmental impact of the lifecycle of each of their products to the consumer. This legislation calls for the development of standards regulating the methodology lifecycle impact quantification and provides guidance based on behavioral economics and social psychology for designing and implementing eco-labeling initiatives leveraging social norms, individual values and emotions to inspire consumer behavior change. This paper provides background contextualization and discusses the key steps in the design and adoption of eco-labeling legislation.
Keywords: Sustainability, environment, policy, labeling, life cycle assessment, legislation, behavioral economics, values, norms
Acknowledgements: I am grateful first and foremost to Kelly, Katie, Greg and the rest of the Public Policy Program staff for facilitating such a progressive, welcoming and passionate community of educators and students to share our experiences and critically explore how we can each contribute to an ethical, just and sustainable future. Special thanks to Dr. Gretchen Daily my public policy advisor, Dr. Shahzeen Attari, Dr. David Hardisty, Dr. Zack Walsh and Professor Joe Nation for providing insight throughout the thesis process. Thank you to the National Science Foundation for providing the resources to complete this thesis and the Public Policy degree through the Graduate Research Fellowship.
I have a wealth of gratitude and admiration for my public policy cohort which quickly became a wonderful community; a space of belonging for discussion and the critical examination of how our society functions. Above all, I am so grateful to my friends and family, humbled by their unconditional love and support as I continue to explore how I can best add value to and serve the life of others.
Introduction
Within neoliberal economic theory, to achieve Pareto optimum efficiency, a price of a product must incorporate the full cost to society of that product. Such that a citizen choosing to purchase and use that product will derive more benefit from that product than the cost to society. Although, the majority of products today do not incorporate the full environmental impact of their lifecycle into their cost. A product’s lifecycle is comprised of all stages of a product’s life, from raw material extraction through materials processing, manufacture, distribution, use, repair and maintenance, and disposal or recycling. Ideally, taxes would incorporate the value of externalities into the price of a good, but such efforts to establish environmental taxes have proven largely unsuccessful in the current political environment.
Given the current political resistance to market mechanisms, a complimentary approach is one that aims to influence consumer behavior change by providing them with information as to the lifecycle environmental impact of a product. Information must be provided in a manner that aligns with consumer identity and values and motivates consumers to take these environmental impacts into consideration. If public policy is unable to influence consumer action through the price of products, it must at a minimum make the information as to the externalities of a product easily accessible and comprehensible to all consumers.
Historically, economic research on consumer behavior has focused on the causality between price and consumption decisions, but the developing field of behavioral economics seeks to understand how non-price based mechanisms can be implemented to influence individual decision-making to increase collective societal well-being. Non-price consumer influencing mechanisms aim to leverage social norms, individual values and feelings to inspire behavior change. Such a policy would need ensure consumers are exposed to the lifecycle impact of a product and that information is delivered in a manner that inspires consumers to incorporate the full impact of their purchase into their individual decision-making framework.
The Conscious Consumption Act
I propose legislation, the Conscious Consumption Act, that mandates all companies must divulge information capturing the environmental impact of their lifecycle for all products, legislation that could be implemented at the federal, state or municipal level. The act will:
1) Establish a standardized framework for measuring the lifecycle environmental footprint of a product including the natural resources consumed and effects on ecosystem services.
2) Define the manner in which corporations must divulge this information to the general public.
The Conscious Consumption Act would ensure consumers are exposed to information that inspires them to make informed consumptive decisions based on the broader environmental implications their purchase that could impact human well-being worldwide. This legislation envisions establishing an eco-labeling requirement for all products that would be the mechanism by which lifecycle impact information is provided to the consumer. Within this legislation, standards will be developed regulating the methodology for quantifying the environmental impact of a product as well as the content and design of eco-labels.
Legislative Precedent
The Consumer Bill of Rights
According to the Consumer Bill of Rights, first proposed by John F. Kennedy in 1962 and later adapted and expanded by the UN in 1999, two specific rights speak to the legal basis for establishing the Conscious Consumption Act (Consumer, 2018).
1) Consumers must have access to adequate information to enable them to make informed choices according to individual wishes and needs;
2) Consumers must have access to education, including education on the environmental, social and economic impacts of consumer choice.
The UN Consumer Bill of Rights adds to the US Consumer Bill of Rights by including a clause that implores governments engage in the promotion of sustainable consumption patterns.
Nutrition Labeling and Education Act
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) established a precedent for the form of regulation proposed within the Conscious Consumption Act. The FDA was formed in 1906 to as a federal consumer protection agency under the Pure Food and Drugs Act. This law was the culmination of about 100 bills over a quarter-century that aimed to rein in long-standing, serious abuses in the consumer product marketplace (When, 2018). The Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990 (NLEA) (21 U.S.C. 301) required food manufacturers to provide nutrition information about their products in a truthful and complete manner. The goal of this requirement was to reduce the negative effects of untruthful and exaggerated claims as well as improve the accessibility of nutrition information at the point of sale so as to increase the extent to which consumers could process and use it in their choices (Moorman, 1996).
The fundamental purpose of NLEA is equal to that of the Conscious Consumption Act — provide consumers with information about the impact the consumption of a product could have on their own personal well-being and the well-being of others.
Automobile Fuel Economy Labeling
Fuel economy labels for vehicles are currently regulated by the federal EPA. Fuel economy labels have been displayed on the window sticker of all new light duty cars and trucks since the mid-1970s, as required by the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (History, 2018). The requirements for the Fuel Economy Label were updated in 2007 with the passing of the Energy Independence and Security Act such that a label 1) must be affixed to all new vehicles sold in the U.S., 2) Include vehicle performance information for fuel economy, greenhouse gases emissions and other emissions over the useful life of automobile and 3) include a rating system to allow for vehicle comparison including highest fuel economy and lowest greenhouse gases emissions (Summary, 2018).
Theoretically, by making this fuel economy data easily accessible via the fuel economy label, consumers are able to make more informed choices regarding fuel efficiency when shopping for a new vehicle. But, the fuel economy label has received mixed reviews as to its ultimate influence on consumer behavior which must be considered in developing labeling approaches within the Conscious Consumption Act.
Environmental Protection Agency — Safer Choice Program
The EPA’s Safer Choice Program has developed a label that companies can display on their product if they prove that their product meets stringent criteria (The Safer Choice Standard) for both human health and the environment, including carcinogenicity, reproductive/developmental toxicity, toxicity to aquatic life, and persistence in the environment (Learn, 2018). This label conveys information to the consumer about the quality of chemicals used in a specific product. This program is currently voluntary, but under legislation like the Conscious Consumption Act, if companies are required to quantify the impact of the product on human and environmental health, more companies may be motivated to reformulate the chemical composition of their products to receive the Safer Choice accreditation to be more competitive in the market. Although, this claim assumes that consumers are making decisions based on the label, emphasizing the importance of designing physical labels that effectively engage and influence consumers.
Figure 1. Safer Choice Label (EPA, 2018)
Conscious Consumption Act and Eco-labeling
The Conscious Consumption Act would standardize and regulate eco-labeling. An eco-label is a label that either gives direct information about the environmental impact of a product or represents that a certain product has met a series of standards regarding the magnitude of its environmental impact across a set of categories. Current best practice for quantifying the environmental impact of a product is based on the Life-Cycle Assessment approach.
Life-cycle assessment (LCA) is a tool that can be used to evaluate the potential environmental impacts of a product, material, process, or activity. An LCA is a comprehensive method for assessing a range of environmental impacts across the full life cycle of a product system, from materials acquisition to manufacturing, use, and final disposition (Design, 2018). The ultimate environmental impact of a product is quantified via a compilation and evaluation of the inputs, outputs, and processes across a variety of impact categories (Hellweg, 2014).
Figure 2. Product Life Cycle
Once the impact of a product is quantified, there exists a major question of how to best convey that information the consumer. Individuals spend as little as two seconds looking at product information before making a purchase decision (Clement, 2007). Thus, providing the full environmental impacts of a product on a label is likely not an effective method for influencing consumption behavior. As such, this legislation will propose the establishment of eco-labels that represent a product having met an accredited standard, such as the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) certified organic label. This paper will explore in much more detail how values, identity, emotions and social norms influence individual consumption and how an eco-label could leverage these interacting factors to influence individual consumption behavior.
Roadmap
As a first step in developing the the Conscious Consumption Act, this paper provides background contextualization and a general roadmap discussing the key aspects in the design and adoption of eco-labeling legislation through four main sections.
Frameworks for eco-labels — Discussion of the purpose of an eco-label and the learnings from multiple product labeling efforts.
The psychology of eco-labeling — Overview of the social psychology and behavioral science research that informs the development of novel eco-labels that influence human behavior.
Eco-label design — Proposition of the key design considerations to develop novel eco-labels that influence human behavior.
Policy adoption and implementation considerations — Demonstration of a feasibility analysis and proposition of key considerations for policy-makers to inform policy creation and implementation of the Conscious Consumption Act.
Frameworks for Eco-Labels
While quantification and delivery of the life-cycle impact assessment of a product to the consumer is the core purpose of the Conscious Consumption Act, equally important is the manner in which that information is delivered to the consumer. The introduction established that information regarding the lifecycle impact of a product must be provided to the consumer, but simply providing the raw information to the consumer may not be effective in inspiring the consumer to engage with that information. Furthermore, it is simply not feasible due to space constraints to design a label that delivers all of the information across the many categories of a life-cycle impact assessment.
Learnings from nutritional labeling
In the case of nutritional labeling, extensive research has been conducted to understand what characteristics of existing labeling formats are contributing to or detracting from influencing consumer behavior. The three most salient findings of this research that influence consumer behavior include the simplicity, clarity and conciseness of a label.
Figure 3. Standard Nutritional Label (Nutrition, 2018)
Simplicity — Nutritional labeling studies have found that simpler front-of-pack labelling formats with more extensive informational labels on the back of the package seem more appropriate in a shopping environment where quick decisions are made (Wansink, 2003; Feunakes, 2008). Often, nutritional labels as they currently exist have too much information for the user to process and incorporate into their decision-making matrix, especially given the rapid environment in which shopping occurs. This is a key consideration for designing life-cycle impact labels as there is an incredible amount of information that could be included on a label. But distilling that information into a core message that could be quickly and easily incorporated into the decision-making process will likely have a great influence on the consumption decision.
Clarity — Consumers tend to perform poorly with manipulation of quantitative nutrient information (Drichoutis, 2006). For example, consumers are more reactive to labeling that includes the use of bold text, colored nutrition panels, and whole numbers instead of decimals.
Conciseness — In multiple studies, subjects indicated a preference for the largest amount of information offered, but further tests revealed that a surplus of information can result in poorer performance regarding comprehension and ease of use in making food choices (Burton, 1996; Block, 2006). It has also been shown that a relatively large amount of nutritional information can even deter test subjects from using this information in food choice, purchase or consumption decisions (Heike, 2012).
Simply providing information to consumers is often ineffective at influencing consumer behavior. It has been long established that marketing agencies leverage individual consumer values to stimulate emotional responses in consumers to influence consumer behavior. Even a perfectly quantified life-cycle impact information, delivered to the consumer, could have zero impact of consumer behavior if that information is not delivered as in a salient manner that inspires certain emotional responses.
Current best framework — Binary eco-labels
Based on these learnings from consumer interactions with the nutritional label, the eco-label movement is now focused on designing a label that is simple yet impactful. Realistically, it is not feasible to represent the hundreds of impact criteria that can be quantified to assess the life-cycle impact of a product. Informational labels that grab attention, are easy to understand, are consistent across categories and most importantly display important information make it easier for consumers to make pro-environmental decisions (White, 2018).
The labeling framework that has surfaced as most effective in engaging consumers is a binary label. A binary label is a label that represents that a specific product meets an industry standard across an array of criteria. In this context, a label is a distinctive symbol revealing differences between more sustainable and less sustainable practices, which consumers might have been aware of but which they could not identify in the market (De Boer, 2003). A well-known binary label in the US is the USDA organic foods label, which represents that a food or beverage product meets a set of USDA industry standards. If a product fails to meet one of the many standards, then it is not permitted to claim to be USDA organic certified and use the label on packaging. Essentially, a binary label represents that, yes, the product does meet the set of criteria. If the product does not, then it does not receive the label.
The vast majority of eco-labels use the binary framework (All, 2018). This represents the shift from a label that contains a large quantity of information to a label that is simple, easily recognizable and meaningful. To maximize its influence, a binary label should (1) be regulated by a respected institution that the public trusts, (2) provide options for consumers to access more detailed information about the criteria the label represents and the quantifications for each product that bears the label, and (3) have an outreach component that educates the public as to what the label represents in terms of characteristics of the product.
An eco-label aims to influence both individual consumers as well as larger procurement groups. Individuals and procurement groups each have different motivations for purchasing a product that has a smaller environmental impact. Procurement motivations are significantly simpler than individual motivation. Procurement groups often want to establish that their operation is environmentally friendly as it gives them a competitive advantage in the market over other firms. As such, a simple label that establishes that a product meets an industry standard will be sufficient to motivate procurement groups, as long as that label is widely respected in the industry. Whereas individuals have a wide range of motivations that influence their consumption decisions.
This paper will focus on the consumer side of eco-labeling, examining how binary eco-labels can be designed from a marketing perspective, leveraging our current understanding of human psychology, to have the greatest influence on direct shopping decisions by the consumer. And within the consumer side, while eco-labels have significant influence on the decisions of larger procurement groups, this paper will focus specifically on the behavior of an individual consumer representing their personal preferences.
The Psychology of Eco-labeling
The original nutritional labeling format established under NLEA was created with a critical design flaw, that humans are rational beings. Early versions of a nutritional label that are still largely followed today do effectively deliver information to the consumer, but that information does not effectively evoke an emotional response in the consumer and often fails to influence behavior. Humans are more responsive to stimuli that evoke a strong feeling or emotion. Simply exposing humans to information may not influence consumptive behavior (Peter, 1999).
The psychology of the eco-labeling approach prescribed within the Conscious Consumption Act at face value seems similar to that of nutritional labeling, but, when explored in depth, involves a fundamentally different paradigm. Nutritional labels aim to influence consumption behavior by stimulating self-interested and individualistic motivators. In the case of nutrition, people are making consumption decisions that will have a direct impact on their personal health or the health of their nuclear family. A powerful norm exists in Western cultures that specifies self-interest both is and ought to be a powerful determinant of behavior; a norm that influences people’s actions and opinions as well as the accounts they give for their actions and opinions (Miller, 2018).
The challenge for eco-labels and the sustainability movement writ large is that many of the negative effects of overconsumption will not directly affect those individuals that are the most consumptive. Poor countries will most likely suffer the bulk of the damages from climate change, countries that have the smallest environmental footprint (Mendelsohn, 2006).
Therein lies the design challenge. How do we motivate individuals to change their behavior if they feel that they don’t have any skin in the game? If they don’t think that climate change will ever personally affect them or their close ones?
To answer these questions, environmental sustainability groups have increasingly adopted principles of social marketing. One promising strategy is to design eco-labels such that they stimulate more selfless and collective motivators, the desire to take an action for the well-being of others. Instead of stimulating self-interested motivations, eco-labels could take the strategy of making consumers feel like they are contributing to something larger than themselves. Outreach campaigns that attempt to increase engagement with environmental issues by stimulating self-enhancing values — although potentially effective for producing small scale, piecemeal and short-term behavioral changes — undermine the ‘common cause’ logic and the activation of self-transcendent values in the general population (Crompton, 2010).
Current American culture is plagued by sentiments of individualism that have driven many members of society into feelings of extreme isolation and loneliness. Eco-labels have the opportunity to give people a sense of belonging, a sense of community, a sense of the happiness and purpose that can be derived from collective action and the stimulation of positive emotions. The effectiveness of eco-labels to reduce consumption of high life-cycle impact goods is likely dependent on their ability to stimulate the power of collectivism and activate positive decision/emotional feedback loops.
Values
Social dilemmas like the tragedy of the commons that is the greatest barrier to environmental sustainability at a global scale are directly linked to trust games, like the sequential prisoner’s dilemma games. In such games, if two players trust each other and cooperate, they can both receive a moderately high payoff. However, if one player cooperates and the other does not, then the one who did not cooperate receives an even higher payoff, while the other receives little or nothing (Ostrom, 2000). This dynamic captures the challenge facing the environmental sustainability movement. How do you inspire people to cooperate and act for the greater good instead of being individualistic?
In order to stimulate collective action, it is first necessary to understand which human values foster collectivism which could overcome the psychological and behavioral tendencies that lead to the tragedy of the commons. Certain intrinsic values such as compassion, humility and gratitude, have strong potential to increase collectivism and inspire pro-environmental behavior change. This section will explore self-determination theory as applied to the concept of sustainable consumption. Self-determination theory is a theory of motivation concerned with supporting our natural or intrinsic tendencies to behave in effective and healthy ways (Deci, 2011).
One framework commonly used to describe human values consists of a spectrum which has intrinsic values at one end, juxtaposed by extrinsic values on the other. Human extrinsic values are centered on external approval or rewards. Examples of human extrinsic values include but are not limited to, wealth, power, social status, prestige, authority, and material success. Human intrinsic values are values that are inherently rewarding to pursue (Ostrom, 2000). Individual intrinsic values can take the form of empathy, compassion, gratitude, self-acceptance, generosity, creativity and humility among others.
Could it be that inspiring individual intrinsic values is the key mechanism to motivating collective action? A recent study found that not only does compassionate feelings for the suffering environment promote conservation of nature, but, compassion for the suffering of humans is causally linked to pro-environmental tendencies (Pfattheicher, 2016). If people are compassionate and educated about the impact of their potential actions on other humans via the impact on the environment, they are more likely to consume in a manner that will decrease their impact on the well-being of others. This social justice dynamic can provide people with a community and sense of belonging based in their concern for the well-being of others and catalyze collective action. Individuals with stronger egalitarian and communitarian worldviews have been found to perceive climate change as riskier than those with individualistic and hierarchical values (Kahan, 2012).
Individual intrinsic values help us generate our self-concept of value and stimulate vital intrinsic relational values including but not limited to trust, community, social justice, concern for nature and interdependence. The more strongly people endorse intrinsic relational values beyond their own immediate self-interest, such as self-transcendent, prosocial, or biospheric values, the more likely they are to engage in sustainable consumer behaviors. In addition, consumers who are high in the intrinsic traits of compassion, conscientiousness, gratitude, mindfulness, and self-awareness are more likely to reduce their consumption (White, 2018). People who endorse intrinsic values and who exhibit high levels of altruism are more likely to: engage in sustainable behavior; show higher concern about environmental risks; perform specific actions such as recycling; engage in indirect and direct political engagement on environmental issues and, engage positively with climate change (Corner, 2014). People reminded of intrinsic values like generosity, self-direction and family, for example, have been found to be more likely to support pro-environmental policies than those reminded of financial success and status — without any mention of the environment being made (Sheldon, 2011). Furthermore, individual intrinsic values are core tenants of mindfulness which has been shown to increase consumer awareness of their consumption and reduce compulsive consumption (Benson, 2013).
Another inherent benefit of intrinsically motivating individuals to practice environmentally sustainable behaviors is that intrinsic values, once established, are a more sustainable motivator than extrinsic values. The magnitude of a motivator that stems from extrinsic values is greater in intensity, but shorter in duration than that of intrinsic values. Extrinsic values are not sustainable because as soon as the punishment or reward is withdrawn, the motivation disappears (Kinley, 2015). Furthermore, extrinsic motivators will actually impair and eventually replace the mechanism of intrinsic motivation (Deci, 1999).
For example, an airplane fuel carbon tax which increases the cost of a plane flight attempts to influence consumer behavior by stimulating the extrinsic value of wealth. While a consumer may feel a strong influence to seek an alternative to flying due to the cost while making that specific decision, once that decision is done, that single extrinsic motivator will cease to affect them. Say the consumer then goes to purchase a new car, unless there is another carbon tax or similar extrinsic motivator associated with the type of vehicle, the consumer will not be motivated to practice environmentally sustainable purchasing.
On the other hand, if the consumer was informed of the benefits of not flying to their immediate or the broader community, a consumer that embodies intrinsic values could be swayed to not fly due to their intrinsic motivation. And when faced with a future decision regarding a new car purchase, that intrinsic motivation will still be awakened and engaged, continuing to influence the consumer as long as they are exposed to the information as to the environmental and human well-being benefits of a certain vehicle over another.
Intrinsic motivation has great potential to encourage individual engage in environmentally sustainable behaviors in situations in which consumers feel distant from the effects of climate change. The design challenge for eco-labeling is how can a label stimulate intrinsic values like compassion? How can a label serve as an invitation for people to feel a sense of belonging to a community and a sense of purpose in contributing to something greater than the self?
Framing — positive versus negative
Beyond solely examining values, it is important to investigate which frames an eco-label should use to influence conscious consumption by a consumer. Framing is key to delivering the same information in different ways, inspiring different emotions. Marketers should choose frames strategically to encourage sustainable choices. For example, consumers care much more about future losses than about future gains. Although, in a recent study, gain frames were superior to loss frames in increasing positive attitudes towards climate change mitigation, and also increased the perceived severity of climate change impacts (Spence, 2010).
Eco-labels within the Conscious Consumption Act could frame information on life-cycle impact of a product positively (potential gains) or negatively (potential losses). The question is whether negative framing inspiring fear or positive framing inspiring hope and opportunity is more effective at influencing consumer behavior in a sustained manner.
Negative framing
Over the past few decades, the environmental sustainability movement has primarily advertised the negative impacts of climate change in an attempt to motivate more sustainable behavior. But these efforts have largely failed to influence sustainable behavior.
It has been found that nutritional labels affect purchasing behavior mainly because consumers want to avoid the negative nutrients in food products (Drichoutis, 2006). In the case of environmental sustainability, consumers are often asked to consider the negative emotional consequences, such as guilt, sadness, or fear, of either not engaging in sustainable behaviors or engaging in unsustainable behaviors (White, 2018). Research indicates that positive environmental labeling could be more effective if this were contrasted against negative labelling for environmentally harmful products (Borin, 2011).
In a heavily cited psychological paper, Barbara Frederickson, 2001 apply the broaden-and-build theory to discuss positive and negative emotions. Negative emotions such as anxiety, fear and anger call forth a narrow thought-action repertoire which promotes quick and decisive action that carries direct and immediate benefit (e.g., escape, attack, expel) (Frederickson, 2001). Essentially, a negative emotion drives a one-off reaction as one reacts to that negative emotion. Negative emotions could be an effective behavior motivator if the goal was to motivate consumers to take a single action, but as eco-labels aim to stimulate sustained consumptive behavior decisions each time a person purchases a product, it is unlikely negative emotions will continue to influence behavior over the long-term. As consumers will tire from feeling negative, they will eventually become numb to eco-labels that inspire negative emotions.
Furthermore, efforts by environmental activists to inspire behavior change by stimulating shame and guilt have led to significant feelings of resentment, especially in conservatives, towards the environmental movement. Continuing to attempt to motivate behavior by stimulating negative emotions like shame and guilt is likely to only increase this resentment and further polarize the public opinion of environmental sustainability.
Positive framing
People are more likely to engage in sustainable consumer behaviors when they derive some degree of positive affect or satisfaction from the act (Corral-Verdugo, 2009). Messages that frame the issues more optimistically, or focus on personal efficacy and the power of collective actions, may be more effective than negative message frames such as those that appeal to fear or portray the sacrifices involved in action (Scannel, 2013). Information can be framed as giving the consumer opportunity to contribute to a solution or as a slap on the wrist for a consumer contributing to a problem. Eco-labels have the opportunity to evoke positive emotions by framing information in a manner that invites consumers to contribute to an opportunity, to be a part of collective action to protect something greater than the self.
One design challenge is how to design an eco-label that delivers information as to the life-cycle impact of a product in a way that demonstrates that products contribution to a collective effort. For example, could the water consumption over the life-cycle of a laptop be framed such that the consumer sees the water consumption as that laptops percentage contribution to a laptop industry wide goal to reduce water consumption.
Frederickson et al. 2008 propose a broaden-and-build theory, positive emotions broaden people’s momentary thought-action repertoires, widening the array of the thoughts and actions that come to mind. These broadened mindsets carry indirect and long-term adaptive benefits because broadening builds enduring personal resources, which function as reserves to be drawn on later to manage future threats (Frederickson, 1998). This is the key value of positive emotions in motivating sustained environmental sustainability behavior. The intellectual and psychological personal resource development that eco-labeling could stimulate with positive influencer techniques are far more durable and outlast the transient emotional states that led to their acquisition. Thus, they can continue to exist as behavioral motivators long after the initial exposure to that positive emotion is stimulated by an eco-label.
Frederickson (2001), in a subsequent paper, highlights the following fundamental positive emotions and describes how they can influence human behavior:
“Joy — Creates the urge to play, push the limits, and be creative.
Interest — Creates the urge to explore, take in new information and experiences, and expand the self in the process.
Contentment — Creates the urge to savor current life circumstances and integrate these circumstances into new views of self and of the world.
Pride — Creates the urge to share news of the achievement with others and to envision even greater achievements in the future.
Love — Creates reoccurring cycles of urges to savor experiences with loved ones.”
Two additional positive emotions that have been identified by recent literature to inspire pro-social behavior include hope and awe.
Hope — Hope has the capacity to increase climate activism and participation in climate related campaigns. It has also been shown through peer-reviewed research that hope results in greater support for policy that mitigates climate change (White, 2018).
Awe — Recent studies have found that experiencing awe decreases the sense of an individual self and individual concerns, inspiring individuals to take a collective perspective resulting in prosocial behavior. Piff (2015) found that a naturalistic induction of awe in which participants stood in a grove of towering trees enhanced prosocial helping behavior and decreased entitlement which indicate that awe may help situate individuals within broader social contexts and enhance collective concern. Research has also found that awe expands an individual’s perception of time leading to greater life satisfaction and a preference for experiential instead of material goods (Rudd, 2012).
Local versus global framing
Another key framing consideration is whether to frame the problem as a local problem or a global problem. Or, learning from the previous section, a local opportunity or a global opportunity. Individuals tend to think about climate change in terms of global or future images, messages that focus on geographically local and current images might reduce perceived distance to the problem, and thereby increase engagement (Scannell, 2013).
If labels can be designed to frame the opportunity as having near-term local impact rather than effecting change globally over the long-term, the label may more effectively influence consumer behavior. Locally framed impacts could leverage extrinsic motivations such as the fear of loss of material wealth, such as a house that could be lost to sea level rise. But the danger in consistently stimulating fear as a motivator for behavior change is that it is difficult for humans to continually engage with fear as a motivator, they may eventually become numb to it. As consumers would theoretically be faced with fear regarding a local problem every time they purchase a product, stimulating fear with negative framing may not influence sustained behavior change. It may be worth exploring how to positively frame a local problem to achieve the local motivation without the potential for burnout of negative framing.
In situations in which it is not possible to frame the opportunity as a local opportunity, a global opportunity must tap into intrinsic motivators such as compassion to influence behavior change. For example, stimulating an American’s compassion and desire to indirectly positively impact the well-being of a Mozambican.
Eco-label designers should attempt to frame an opportunity locally if it is possible to do so within the context of a label to tap into both extrinsic motivators (material wealth) and intrinsic motivators (compassion for others in direct community, personal safety, local interdependence). If the opportunity can only be framed globally, it is even more important to leverage intrinsic motivators.
Framing moving forward
“Negative states — like anxiety, depression, and failure — predict local biases consistent with narrowed attention, whereas positive states — like subjective well-being, optimism, and success — predict global biases consistent with broadened attention” (Frederickson, 2001, pp. 218). This attribute of positive emotions make them particularly attractive for the environmental sustainability movement as the issue is a global problem that demands a global perspective. Although, if a designer is attempting to achieve local framing, exploring how negative emotions could leverage local biases could also be effective. A fascinating challenge for eco-label designers is whether it is possible to create labeling that talks about future losses (which people respond to more than future gains) but frame those losses in such a way that inspires positive emotions.
Social norms
Eco-labeling designers should also consider how social norms can be leveraged to motivate consumer behavior. Social norms are the accepted behaviors that an individual is expected to conform to a particular group, community, or culture. First, people who behave in line with a social norm receive social approval, a primary desire of the majority of humans. Second, individuals use their perceptions of peer norms as a standard against which to compare their own behaviors (Rege, 2004). Thus, leveraging this desire to receive social approval and perceptions of peer norms could motivate environmental behavior by consumers.
Descriptive norms
Descriptive norms motivate both private and public actions by informing individuals of what is likely to be effective or adaptive behavior in that situation, in other words, how most people behave in that situation (Cialdini, 1991). For example, Goldstein et al. 2008 studied how people respond to messaging attempting to influence consumer reuse of towels in hotels. One message focused on the importance of environment protection but provided no explicit descriptive norm. A second message conveyed the descriptive norm, informing guests that the majority of other guests do, in fact, participate in the program at least once during their stays. Towel use increased when the messaged conveyed a descriptive norm (Goldstein, 2008).
Within descriptive norms, association of consumers with the reference group identified in the messaging is key. In other words, the target audience for the messaging must identify (similar characteristics) with the population included in the message. Regarding labeling, descriptive norms could be leveraged to inspire others to act if a label demonstrates that the individual engaging is part of a greater collective movement.
Injunctive norms
Injunctive norms refer to beliefs about what other people think ought to be done instead of what others are actually doing (descriptive norms) (Kinzig, 2013). Essentially, each individual has their own perception of what others think should be done. This perception influences the behavior of the individual. A study by the Common Cause Foundation in the UK found that people significantly underestimate the extent to which others value compassion, and therefore, are less compassionate to others (Perceptions, 2016). A fascinating question regarding the eco-label development is whether a label could actually stimulate conversation among consumers around what the average consumer should value in a product.
Provincial norms
Provincial norms are defined as the norms of one’s local setting and circumstances. This norm relates to local framing in that humans are prone to care more about the social norms of their immediate surroundings. In a similar study of towel reuse in hotels, Reese (2014) found that guests of two hotels used significantly fewer towels when provincial normative appeals, rather than standard environmental messages, were communicated.
Identity and social norms
People engage more with movements with which they identify and people with whom they identify. People who identify with a group exhibit more positive emotions for members who conformed with versus violated the group’s norms (Christensen, 2004). One current challenge for the environmental sustainability movement is that most people do not identify with the group that has been at the forefront of the environmental movement, primarily those who are white, privileged and upper class. A key consideration for the design of labels is whether it is possible to develop messages with which people from different cultural groups identify. This is a challenging design question and thought exercise from a logistical perspective. Consider, for example, designing a specific label for specific geographic regions based on the identity of those within a region. Given the heterogeneous nature of cultures in the U.S., this regional approach may still not sufficiently achieve this identity effect. Furthermore, standardized labeling may be difficult if the labeling seeks to motivate behavior leveraging identity, as this would increase the varieties of labels within the standardized portfolio.
Consumption norms
Perhaps the most obvious example of consumption norms in America is within the food industry. In supermarkets, the number of larger sizes has increased 10-fold between 1970 and 2000. In the 2006 edition of the Joy of Cooking, the serving size of some entrées has increased by as much as 42% from some recipes in the first edition of 1931 (Wansick, 2007). Regarding retail, we are constantly exposed to marketing motivating us to buy more and consume more.
A growing movement, which encapsulates the Conscious Consumption Act, aims to foster green consumption. Green consumption attempts to satisfy a number of key issues according to the United Nations Environmental Programme including meeting needs, enhancing quality of life, improving efficiency, minimizing waste, taking a life cycle perspective and taking into account the equity dimension, for both current and future generations, while continually reducing environmental damage and the risk to human health (UN, 2001).
Psychology of conscious consumption
The Conscious Consumption Act aims to stimulate values and emotions through strategic framing and leveraging existing social norms to shift American consumption norms. Existing social conditions are often more fragile than might be supposed, because they depend on social norms to which-and this is the key point-people may not have much allegiance. In a 1996 article, Sunstein points out that norm entrepreneurs-people interested in changing social norms-can exploit this fact. If successful, they produce norm cascades, which occur when there are rapid changes in social norms (Sunstein, 1996). The Conscious Consumption Act could contribute to this norm cascade regarding consumption norms if it’s labeling can effectively inspire positive emotions in a consumer purchasing goods that are resource light. This consumer experience must create a positive intrinsic feedback loop in individuals and leverage social norms to foster a positive feedback loop within social groups.
The challenge is how to design a physical label that effectively incorporates all of these interacting psychological, sociological and human behavior dynamics.
Eco-label Design
Beyond simply providing information, the framing of that information can stimulate emotions, values and social norms to influence consumptive behavior. Based on the content of the previous section, there are many approaches that could be pursued to influencing individual behavior to be more environmentally sustainable. Reflecting on the theory developed at the beginning of the previous section, I will expand on one strategic approach to influence individual behavior that, in my opinion, is underutilized and underexplored. This approach, which I term the Interdependence Activation Approach, aims to stimulate collectivism and leverage the sentiment of interdependence, activating positive decision/emotional feedback loops.
Emotions, values and social norms for interdependence
To inspire a sense of interdependence a label must elicit specific emotions and represent a key combination of values and social norms. Negative emotions such as fear and anxiety push people into a state of fight or flight, survival mode. Whereas positive emotions including awe, hope, love and joy inspire people to work together to develop a solution. To inspire interdependence and an intrinsic desire in each individual to come together in collective action to make their contribution an eco-label within the Conscious Consumption Act framework should be designed to elicit a positive emotional response.
Linked with these positive emotions are the intrinsic values of compassion, gratitude, humility and empathy which are key for inspiring individuals to think beyond their own well-being to the well-being of others. And further helping people recognize, through interdependence, that in today’s globalized world, we are globally interdependent and our consumptive behavior affects the well-being of people on the other half of the globe upon which we are dependent for certain resources. Thus, an eco-label within the Conscious Consumption Act framework should speak to the values of compassion, gratitude, humility and empathy which are vital for inspiring an individual to care for the global state of environmental sustainability and include this consideration in their consumption decisions.
Regarding social norms, to inspire interdependence, an eco-label should leverage descriptive norms, demonstrating that incorporating the eco-label into a purchasing decision is a common thing, everyone is doing it. Furthermore, taking into account provincial and identity norms, when possible, an eco-label should speak to the identity of the individuals within which it is attempting to influence and local issues. As such, one aspect to consider is whether a different eco-label should be used for different parts of the country to speak to local issues or local identity. Although, given the heterogeneity of the US population and the logistical challenges of regionalized eco-label, this approach may not be viable or effective.
Overall, the goal of the eco-label is to stimulate a positive feedback loop, wherein people are inspired by an eco-label and feel happy and a sense of purpose in their contribution to environmental sustainability which the label represents. As more and more people derive an emotional well-being benefit from engaging with the eco-label, others will hopefully take note and incorporate the eco-label into their purchasing behavior. Ultimately, the goal is to shift descriptive, injunctive and consumptive norms such that the market widely adopts meeting the eco-labeling standards because the social norms around consumer behavior have shifted such that the majority of consumers are willing to pay a premium for products that have the eco-label and prefer products that have meet the environmental impact standards the eco-label represents.
Design thinking
Designing a label that stimulates positive emotions and intrinsic values and leverages specific social norms is no small task. And one that must take a participatory approach engaging a large spectrum of consumers. An approach that is rapidly gaining popularity in this realm is design thinking. The design thinking approach emerged from Stanford University in the early 1990s. It is a highly iterative process that begins with empathizing with the target audience or consumer and then develops rapid prototypes to engage the consumer and illicit their feedback to inform the development of a product that is highly engaging. Design thinking would be a valuable approach to apply to the development of an eco-label within the Conscious Consumption Act given the high complexity of the design for a large spectrum of consumers.
Policy adoption and Implementation Considerations
This section serves as a combination of a feasibility analysis and key considerations for policy-makers to inform policy creation and implementation of the Conscious Consumption Act.
California — The First Mover
California has and continue to be an early adopter and leader in state environmental regulation since it became the first state to enact air pollution legislation in 1947. In 1966, California passed legislation establishing the first tailpipe emissions standards in the nation and most recently, in 2015, California passed SB 32, climate-change legislation that extends the state’s targets for reducing greenhouse gases from 2020 to 2030 which are significantly more aggressive than any other state targets (History, 2018; State, 2016). Legislation passed in California has become the benchmark for federal regulations and standards.
“California plays an incredibly important role as a pathfinder that plots out the course for the energy transition, climate change, and the environment in general.”
- Jules Kortenhorst, CEO of the Rocky Mountain Institute (In, 2017)
Executive Order B-30–15 issued by Governor Edmund G. Brown, Jr. stipulates that “State agencies shall take climate change into account in their planning and investment decisions and employ full life-cycle cost accounting to evaluate and compare infrastructure investments and alternatives.” Full life cycle cost accounting in this instance also refers to accounting for the impacts across the life cycle of a product, or life cycle assessment (AB-262, 2018).
Furthermore, AB-262: Buy Clean California Act of 2017 proclaims, “California, through its extensive purchasing power, can improve environmental outcomes and accelerate necessary greenhouse gas reductions to protect public health, the environment, and conserve a livable climate by incorporating emissions information from throughout the supply chain and product life cycle into procurement decisions, and using that information to help direct expenditure.” Under AB-262, California has already required state agencies to account for life-cycle accounting in comparing infrastructure investments, the Conscious Consumption Act would simply extend this informational availability to the consumer related to the products they purchase. Additionally, AB-262 is restricted to greenhouse gas emissions, the Conscious Consumption Act extends life-cycle assessments to the full range of impact categories feasibly quantifiable with existing methodologies.
As of 2017, California’s economy was larger than all but five nations (California, 2017). With an enormous economy and a large market for goods, passing and enforcing the Conscious Consumption Act in California could stimulate broader adaptation. It could influence companies to have similar labeling on products that are sold outside of California, especially those companies for which the labeling is a positive and gives them a competitive advantage over other products.
Regulatory agency
As it has done in the past, California could serve as a pilot program, defining and refining processes and regulations at the state level to enable future adoption as federal legislation. The California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA) is a state cabinet-level agency that is housed within the state government of California. The mission of CalEPA is to restore, protect and enhance the environment, to ensure public health, environmental quality and economic vitality (Boards, 2014). Given this mission and the current role overseeing environmental regulations, CalEPA would be an effective agency with jurisdiction to develop and administer the regulations within the Conscious Consumption Act.
Similar to the US FDA, the US Environmental Protection Agency was also established as a federal consumer protection agency. Combining the precedent of the NLEA established by the FDA, the consumer protection mandate of the EPA and the Consumer Bill of Rights, a strong argument can be made for the endorsement and execution of the Conscious Consumption Act by CalEPA. Furthermore, CalEPA should investigate whether it could unilaterally establish a pilot eco-labeling program building on existing regulatory legislation without the passing of new legislation.
Existing environmental regulations exist for each industry that could ease the transition to mandated life-cycle quantification within the Conscious Consumption Act. For example, California has existing fuel economy standards which relate to the energy consumption of a vehicle during the “use” phase of the life cycle (Federal, 2015). These fuel economy standards could be rolled into a broader life-cycle assessment for each vehicle model.
Compliance
Further analysis is necessary to understand the financial and human resources necessary to assess compliance with the proposed regulations. The frequency and rigor of such compliance checks will be dependent on the costs of the assessment. The compliance checks will determine whether retailers are complying with the labeling regulations of the Conscious Consumption Act. Regarding compliance with the standardized framework for lifecycle environmental footprint, retailers could be required under the legislation to use CalEPA approved third party assessors to complete the lifecycle environmental footprint quantification for each product.
Party responsible for quantification
The legislation for the Nutritional Labeling and Education Act places the cost responsibility of quantifying the nutrients in each food/beverage product complying on the industry which is also the case with fuel economy labels (Domestic, 2018). While this payment model could be applied in the case of the Conscious Consumption Act, full life-cycle analysis for specific products can be far more expensive than determining the nutritional content of a food product or the fuel economy of a vehicle. Given the strong lobbying power of certain industries, in order to pass the legislation, it may be necessary to employ a cost-sharing model wherein the government assumes some or all of the costs of completing the life-cycle assessment on each product.
Pilot program
In addition to the phased approach towards industry-wide compliance, the implementing agency should consider developing the program first around a single pilot industry. An initial piece of legislation focusing on a first-mover industry could reduce the political capital required to pass such legislation, reduce transaction costs and allow for the regulations, standards and administrative processes to be refined. If the program has success at the level of the pilot industry, it would likely increase support for legislation with a broader scope in terms of industry coverage.
The automobile industry is a strong candidate for the pilot industry within the Conscious Consumption Act. A large body of knowledge already exists regarding the life cycle impact of automobiles with established methodologies for these quantifications (Onat, 2016; Domingues 2015; Tessum, 2014; Bauer, 2015. Given the existing greenhouse gas emissions standards, significant research into the use phase environmental impact of cars has already been completed (Nordelof, 2014; Ellingsen, 2016; Climate, 2018). Although, a key consideration in quantifying the automobile life cycle impact is to establish a standardized and scientifically endorsed approach to determining the source energy for electric vehicles (Hawkins, 2013).
In further support of the automobile industry as a pilot industry, California could pass state legislation building on the existing federal legislation requiring fuel economy labels (Energy Policy and Conservation Act). Such legislation would simply update the regulations for the type of information and the manner in which that information is portrayed to the consumer that must be included on automobile fuel economy labels. This smaller scope state legislation could be more politically viable than wide-reaching state or federal legislation.
There are more than 470 eco-labels that are currently used in practice. The EPA is currently undergoing an effort to assess the robustness of these labels and theoretically develop a new eco-labeling framework that defines a core set of standards and associated eco-labels that could be widely mandated and regulated by the US EPA. Within the Conscious Consumption Act, CalEPA could establish a pilot program for such a family of eco-labels.
Phased approach for industry compliance
As an alternative or addition to a pilot program, policy-makers could roll out the mandate in phases in which the timeline for compliance would be different for each industry depending on which phase they are included. This strategic approach could lower the barriers to broad-scope legislation by enabling CalEPA to develop and perfect the regulations and administrative processes with simpler industries first and first including industries that would be more inclined to participating in such a program, increasing the political feasibility of passing the early legislation. If necessary, depending on political resistance, separate legislation could be created for each phase. In the phased approach, policy-makers should consider the following characteristics of an industry to determine which industries should be included in which phase.
Define standard life-cycle assessment methodologies
The NLEA required the FDA to publish proposed regulations within 12 months and final regulations within 24 months of enactment of the act (Nutrition, 1990). It further required standard definitions be developed that characterized the level of nutrients and required that FDA provide for approved health claims (Wartella, 2010).
A similar process guided by CalEPA in the case of the Conscious Consumption Act would be necessary to establish regulations around which methodologies shall be standardized within the Conscious Consumption Act. Given the continual development of LCA methodologies, a key consideration for regulatory experts is which methodology or methodologies should be standardized. In order for consumers to fairly compare products, an industry standard needs to be established such that all LCA are completed following the same methodology. It is possible that different methodologies will need to be standardized for different industries, as such the array of methodologies will depend on the scope of the initial phase of the legislation should the legislation take a phased approach with different industries being included in different phases.
In the case of the Conscious Consumption Act, the time frame for development of regulations will depend on the scope of industry inclusion dependent on the design of the phased approach to industry compliance. During this 12 to 24-month time frame, a working group of academics and industry experts in life cycle assessment, led by CalEPA, should publish initial proposed regulation regarding which impact categories must be quantified and the methodologies that must be used to complete the quantification. After publishing the proposed regulation, there should a 45-day period for public comment and response as is normal within federal EPA policies (EPA, 2018). Furthermore, CalEPA would be wise to bi-annually update the standardized methodologies to ensure the effectiveness of the legislation continues to grow in parallel with advancements in scientific methodology.
The European Commission Joint Research Centre released a handbook in 2010 that provides recommendations for Life Cycle Impact Assessment in the European context describing the indicators and methodologies recommended for Life Cycle Impact Assessment (ILCD, 2010). This handbook provides a framework that could be used by CalEPA to develop their own regulations within the Conscious Consumption Act.
Political feasibility
The most difficult consideration is which industry may welcome this form of legislation and which are more likely to actively fight it. Even within an industry, specific groups whose products may be seen as less sustainable relative to other groups in that same industry based on their inputs and processes would likely push back against this legislation. Furthermore, if such groups have strong lobbying power, it may be wise to include industries that would be less resistant to such technologies in the earlier phases when the operationalization of the legislation is still being refined. And, if consumer and industry support grows for the legislation, resisting groups would face increased pressure to comply with the legislation. One political strategy for passing the legislation could be to have a series of bills, the first focused on early adopters with industries that are supportive of the process, and then have subsequent legislation include the more resistant industries.
Timeline
California, under the leadership of Jerry Brown, has continued to be an environmental leader being the first and only state to establish a greenhouse gas emissions cap-and-trade program. Regardless of when legislation is passed, the implementation timeline required within the Conscious Consumption Act could follow the precedent established by Nutritional Labeling and Education Act.
1) Within 6 to 18 months of the date of the enactment of the Conscious Consumption Act (depending on whether the legislation is designed for a pilot industry or a broader scope) the responsible agency, CalEPA, after providing an opportunity for comment, would issue guidelines to companies in all industries included in the initial scope of the bill selling products in the state of California to provide lifecycle environmental footprint information as specified by CalEPA.2) Upon the expiration of 36 months after the date of the enactment of the Conscious Consumption Act, the Secretary shall issue a report on actions taken by retailers to provide consumers with lifecycle environmental footprint information under the guidelines issued by CalEPA, giving industry two years to comply with the new requirements. Such report shall include a determination of whether there is substantial compliance with the guidelines.
3) Each company will be required to update their lifecycle environmental footprint information on a bi-annual basis and will be assessed by CalEPA every two years to assess their compliance with the regulation.
Conclusion and Recommendations
The Conscious Consumption Act provides one potential solution to the inefficiency of current markets which fail to capture the externalities across the lifecycle of a product from raw material sourcing to disposal in the price of a product. To achieve efficient consumption of goods, such that the individual benefit of consuming the product equals the cost to society, consumers must have perfect information about the true cost of a product and furthermore take that information into consideration in their purchasing decisions. The Conscious Consumption Act is a feasible step in ensuring this information is at a minimum accessible to consumers and ideally actively considered by consumers in their purchasing decisions.
Representing a shift from purely delivering information, the binary label proposed in this paper is more easily recognizable and designed to engage consumers emotionally. California, a frequent first mover in environmental regulation with significant purchasing power has the opportunity develop a new eco-labeling framework that defines a core set of standards and associated binary eco-labels that could be widely mandated and regulated by the agency. California EPA is a respected institution that the public trusts which could regulate the eco-labels. To be most effective, CalEPA must provide options for consumers to access more detailed information about the criteria the label represents and the quantifications for each product that bears the label, and have an outreach component that educates the public as to what environmental standards a product must meet to attain the eco-label.
The political barriers to passing such legislation are significant, but the Conscious Consumption Act is a rare opportunity in the public policy space that seeks to stimulate intrinsic motivation to influence behavior change. Beyond this piece of legislation, policymakers must explore how we can leverage our understanding of psychology and sociology to design interventions that inspire pro-environmental behavior because they make us feel good, they give us meaning and purpose and we can identify with the movement. Extrinsic influencers, such as a carbon tax, will influence consumer behavior, but if a new administration removes the tax, consumer behavior will likely shift back to the pre-tax era. Other forms of policy that influence behavior change, such as the Conscious Consumption Act, that complement extrinsic influencers are needed.
Ultimately, physically labeling on products may not be the most effective way to influence consumer behavior, but it will push companies to quantify their product’s environmental externalities and make this information accessible to the consumer. The Conscious Consumption Act is another tool in the environmental policymaker’s toolkit; a tool that, if designed properly, can speak to the hearts of every American citizen and influence the consumptive behavior of those who do not identify with the environment, but do identify with the human experience.
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