Feelings and cognition

70 6.2.5. Individual differences

People have different personal norms and beliefs concerning a sense of obligation that are associated with the individuals’ self-standards (White et al., 2019). Companies can target different segments with customized appeal by reflecting the particular needs and motivations, barriers and benefits of the target group. University students are price sensitive, hence the major barrier for them to be pro-environmental is the premium price of the green products. On the other hand, they are more familiar with the concept and outcomes of being pro-environmental and self-conscious, therefore, companies need to focus on communicating the positive self-focused and environmental-focused attributes of green home care products.

People who have kids want to be viewed as responsible parents by choosing natural home care products, and they normally influence each other by recommending products that perceived as harmless or beneficial for their kids. Thereby, firms need to address the attribute of having less or zero harmful ingredients in green products and leverage the aspirational image of parents.

71

that people are in favour of positive self-concepts. When they are accused to be irresponsible to the environment, it potentially threatens their positive self-image, therefore, they will present self-defensive reactions. For instance, Participant 2 was fierce and declined his negative impact on the environment by saying “I can’t see the direct impact from my daily consumption”. Positive emotions are considered to have a more positive impact on consumers’

pro-environmental consumption. Participants all claimed that they prefer the message with positive emotion comparing with the intensive negative emotional message. Furthermore, the empathy towards nature and animals drive consumers to be more pro-environmental.

Nevertheless, 4 out of 6 participants said they would not buy the product, because they want more facts and actual information. Hence, positive emotions can shift consumers to be more pro-environmental, when they are combined with more factual information. Anticipated guilt can affect people who are in relation to future generations. For example, the participant who is a father confirmed that he would buy the green product that shows that it has a positive environmental impact on future generation. Other participants are less appealed by such message. Both collective guilt and positive emotions have higher impact on participants comparing with the messages only involve positive or negative emotions. Participants showed a higher willingness to buy the responsible green products when exposed to such messages.

As they have a sense of belonging to the country they reside in, they feel responsible for the country. During the interview, many participants emphasized their personal interests in this block. This indicates that affective approach should be based on concrete information, and should link the emotions to symbolic pro-environmental attributes.

6.3.2. Information, learning, and knowledge

Firstly, knowledge plays a crucial role in driving consumers towards sustainability. Participant 3 have the most knowledge about pro-environmental household products, because she is working in a company that sells such products and therefore provides resources for her to learn. As a result, she is the only regular consumer of green home care products. Participant 1 is a university student, who is studying a program related to sustainability, and she is personally interested in this topic, therefore, she is relatively familiar with the concept and

72

outcomes of consuming environment-friendly products. She mentioned in her interview that the knowledge is a facilitator for her for consuming pro-environmental products. Whereas other participants who are less involved in pro-environmental consumption claimed they don’t have enough knowledge to buy and choose the right green products. Participant 4 also mentioned that he was emersed in the topic of sustainability when he was taking a course about sustainability. He found himself to be more willing to consume green products proactively and more consciously with his daily consumption in that period, as in that time he was exposed to knowledge that could be reflected in his routine consumption. Indeed, knowledge enables consumers to add input into a low-involvement and routine decision, because consumers are interested in processing information with their knowledge. Information induces the deliberate decision and behavior. The key issues regarding information of green household products are availability and authenticity. Many participants mentioned that it is time-consuming for them to find relevant information on different platforms, and they prefer to read most important information on packaging while shopping. Providing meaningful and useful information on packaging triggers the system 2 system to override system 1, because people would read and process information slowly and consciously when they are shopping. Especially, when the packaging is eye-catching, it has a higher chance to encourage consumers to have a second look or even have a closer look thoroughly. In addition, the information on the packaging should not only address the symbolic pro-environmental attribute but also the functional attributes. When the interviewees where shown different products, all participants chose the product that is claimed to be effective on the packaging and recommend by different well-known dishwasher manufacturers (see Appendix 10). Lack of authenticity and lack of information provided by companies is one of the factors that stop consumers from buying green home care products. More than half of the participants do not believe companies’ claims about being environment friendly, and they prefer information that is provided by reliable third parties or authorities. Furthermore, participants mentioned that they don’t know the actual outcome of green household product consumption, which leads to a low self-efficacy.

Thereby, companies need to be more transparent with such information and provide relevant education. Educating consumers from a broader perspective including urgent environmental

73

issues and potential behaviors can shift consumers to be more pro-environmental by exposing consumers to the concept. The last block of the interview was conducted after we explained the major environmental issues caused by household products industry, potential solutions can be taken by individuals, and possible outcomes of using green home care products. Participants who are not currently consuming green products said they want to be more engaged with environment-friendly home care products after participating in this research.

6.3.3. Eco-labelling and framing

Eco-labelling is one of the ways to convey information in regards of the pro-environmental attributes of a household product. As mentioned before, participants clarified that packaging is the more ideal and time-saving way for them to receive responsive information. Authorized eco-labels increase the authenticity of a green product, and they are easy to understand.

However, it should be easy to find on the packaging. In the last interview question of the third block, four different products are showcased to the participants (see Appendix 10). Most of participants did not realize the last product presented to them is pro-environmental, because the eco-label is too small to be recognized immediately. Eco-labelling can also be extended to packaging design. Packaging design of pro-environmental products need to be distinct and eye-grabbing, so people can easily distinguish green products from conventional products.

Many participants instantly pointed out the first product is the most environment-friendly product, because it has an easy-to-understand label of recyclable packaging, and the packaging is in the colour green. However, some participants mentioned that the sign of “0%” is confusing for people who are not familiar with natural products with 0% chemical. Framing can have different effects on different segments of consumer. In this report, the segment can be narrowed to people who live in Denmark. People living in Denmark prefer messages with positive emotions, which specify the positive environmental contribution of buying green home care products. They also want to be able to identify the key functional attributes of such products (e.g., the performance of the product). Hereby, green messages should contain both representative environmental-focused attributes and basic functional attributes that consumers typically seek for in their routine behaviour. Moreover, being healthy is another information consumers are looking for when they purchase green products.

74