The influences of the COVID-19 pandemic on sustainable consumption: an international study

Background Sustainable production and consumption are two important issues, which mutually interact. Whereas individuals have little direct influence on the former, they can play a key role on the latter. This paper describes the subject matter of sustainable consumption and outlines its key features. It also describes some international initiatives in this field. Results By means of an international survey, the study explores the emphasis given to sustainable consumption during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the degree of preparedness in individuals to engage in the purchase of green and sustainably manufactured products. The main results indicate that the pandemic offered an opportunity to promote sustainable consumption; nevertheless, the pandemic alone cannot be regarded as a ‘game changer’ in this topic. Conclusions Apart from an online survey with responses from 31 countries, which makes it one of the most representative studies on the topic, a logit model was used to analyse the main variables that affect the probability of pro-environmental consumption behaviour because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper lists some of the technological and social innovations that may be needed, so as to guide more sustainable consumption patterns in a post-pandemic world.

Description

Open Access: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Keywords

SDG 12 Sustainable consumption index Consumption behaviours Sustainable products Green consumption

URI

http://hdl.handle.net/10284/10992

Citation

Leal Filho, W., Salvia, A. L., Paço, A., Dinis, M. A. P., Vidal, D. G., Cunha, D. A. D., Vasconcelos, C. R. d., Baumgartner, R., Rampasso, I., Anholon, R., Doni, F., Sonetti, G., Azeiteiro, U., Carvalho, S., & Ríos, F. J. M. (2022). The Influences of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Sustainable Consumption: an international study [Research]. Environmental Sciences Europe, 34, 1-17, Article 54. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12302-022-00626-y