The world today faces many challenges in terms of sustainability and how the world will be able to continue to meet demands of future generations. Sustainability aspects are considered by customers and organizations to a greater extent today than ever before. Businesses need to find new ways forward to encourage sustainable consumption to be able to exist in the future. The increasing amount of food waste represents one of many sustainability challenges and is a stated problem in developed countries. In Sweden, the households stand for the biggest amount of food waste along the entire supply chain. Producing something that is later wasted is an inefficient use of resources. This study aims to identify barriers for consumers to act pro-environmentally when consuming products of low involvement and find ways for the industry to overcome them. The thesis is commissioned for a large bread company in Sweden, who is in the starting blocks of start selling frozen bread, something that is not done to a great extent today. Frozen bread is a more environmentally sustainable alternative than substitute products and it will serve as the low-involvement product in focus of this study. The theoretical framework is built on theories regarding consumer decision-making, consumer behavior, sustainability and sustainable consumption. Through in-store observations of customers accompanied by follow-up interviews, a solid amount of data was gathered which allowed the authors to address the gap between intentions and behavior. Semi-structured interviews with the manager of the grocery store and the commissioned company give insights to the industry perspective of sustainability and consumer behavior. The empirical findings are presented from each data collection instance and are later analyzed and discussed with regard to four sub-purposes and the theoretical framework. The results have shown that existing barriers relate to customers’ habits, inertia, attitudes and lack of knowledge. The industry has the opportunity to bring forward sustainable products without tradeoffs, to create a win-win situation. By appealing to the customers’ hedonic needs and informing them about environmental benefits it is possible to influence customer norms to achieve a pro-environmental behavioral change.

Product labelling schemes have become one of the most prominently used instruments to facilitate more Sustainable Consumption and Production. But with a plethora of labelling schemes having been implemented, many now accuse them of being confusing rather than facilitating. As a result, governments in France, UK and Germany, as well as businesses, such as Walmart, and non-governmental organisations, like WWF, have begun to consider seriously the implementation of some form of ‘Sustainability Meta Label’ that condenses existing product-labels and other communication measures into a more coherent overarching scheme. Yet so far, in depth studies on the potential institutionalisation of a Sustainability Meta Labelling Scheme are missing.Based on case study research of four existing product labelling schemes (EU eco, EU energy, Fairtrade and MSC label), this study addresses this gap by developing a novel theoretical framework to study the causalities behind product labelling institutionalisation processes. Combining theoretical arguments of constructivist institutionalism and institutional entrepreneurship with concepts of legitimacy from the governance and organisational studies literature, this framework establishes the institutionalisation of product labelling schemes as contingent on an interactive legitimacy construction between actors involved in the initiation and organisational structures of a labelling scheme and other actors within the production and consumption system. This construction tends to cluster around aspects of tradition, regulation, charisma, knowledge, consequences, and procedures.By concretizing this framework in the context of the studied cases, it is shown how legitimacy constructions are highly complex and how in particular procedural and consequential legitimacy can give rise to fundamental conflicts. The potentially large scope, focus and area of application of a Sustainability Meta Label with the need to find agreements in regard to the very contested notion of Sustainable Development, seems to make the task of managing such conflicts even more difficult. While the mobilisation of knowledge, traditional, regulatory and charismatic logics can circumvent some of these conflicts, they have also demonstrated to be anything but a silver bullet. In a sense, this study shows that the very issue that is claimed to drive the establishment of a Sustainability Meta Labelling Scheme-the different interpretations of the Sustainable Development concept through different product labels-might in fact pose one of the main challenges for its institutionalisation and effectiveness in facilitating more Sustainable Consumption and Production.With these findings this study makes important contributions not only to an increasingly prominent policy making discussion but also to the wider product labelling and new institutional literature. After further empirical testing, the developed theoretical framework could guide future research into the institutionalisation of product labelling schemes and potentially also other ordering mechanisms. While the focus of this study is on commonalities across product labelling schemes such further research could especially expand on how micro, meso, and macro level factors can shape institutionalisation processes in diverse ways.

För den här studien har jag intervjuat fyra kvinnor kring konsumtion, gemensamt är att de alla identifierar sig som köpstoppare. Syftet är att ta reda på hur de agerar när de köpstoppar. Jag har frågat dem hur de definierar konsumtion, och det framkommer att de inte uppfattar alla former av konsumtion som konsumtion. Jag har även styrt in samtalen på hur de ser på status kopplat till konsumtion samt hur de upplever att deras sociala relationer påverkas av deras förändrande konsumtionsmönster. Studien visar på att köpstopp är något mer än att mina informanter slutar konsumera med pengar. Det deras agerande handlar om är ett individuellt ställningstagande kring hur de vill hushålla med sin tid, sin ekonomi samt sina relationer. / For this study, I have interviewed four women about consumption, what they all have in common is that they identify themselves as “köpstoppare. The purpose is to find out what it is they do when they “köpstoppar”. I have asked them how they define consumption, and it appears that they do not perceive all forms of consumption as consumption. I have also guided the conversations on how they view status linked to consumption and how they feel that their social relationships are affected by their changing consumption patterns. The study shows that “köpstopp” is something more than my informants stopping consuming with money. What their actions are about is an individual stance on how they want to manage their time, their finances and their relationships.

The urgency for a drastic reduction in greenhouse gas emission is emphasised in the new Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in order to maintain the security and sustainable development of humanity. As proposed in the report, changing individual consumption behaviour can considerably alleviate the environmental impact of consumption and emissions. However, transforming individual to sustainable consumption behaviour has proven over time to be a challenging task involving all aspects of the society and industry. Sharing practice is a form of collaborative consumption proven to be applicable in fulfilling user needs with minimised environmental impact and material consumption as well as creating a sustainable consumption behaviour. A case study is conducted on the online peer-to-peer stuff sharing platform to discover what challenges users to perform sharing practice, what influences the participation in sharing practice, and what strategy a platform can have to stimulate the participation in sharing practice. The method of this thesis is a qualitative content analysis of the user reviews from the online stuff sharing platform, and the approach is inspired by grounded theory. The findings of the thesis present the difficulties of platform users in sharing practice, i.e. information transparency, arrangement, quality, security, and user knowledge. Also, the findings state the factors underlying identified difficulties, namely social presence, competence in sharing practice, and platform responsibility. The study concludes with strategies that can be applied for optimising sharing practice and platform. Besides, the initiative of the platform is highlighted to create transformation toward sustainable consumption behaviour. Otherwise, the development of sharing practice can be jeopardised. Besides, further research is necessary to establish a holistic outlook of sharing practice and facilitating the transformation toward sustainable consumption.

The fast fashion companies are growing with their cheap and trendy clothing, promoting people to adapt to new trends and to consume. At the same time, many fast fashion companies have started to advertise sustainable strategies which are communicated though social media. The aim of this research is therefore to investigate social media as a channel for fast fashion companies to communicate sustainable fashion advertisement, by looking at the Swedish market and the generation Y. A qualitative method was used, and the data was collected though semi-structed interviews. The conclusion of this study is that social media as a channel for fast fashion companies to communicate sustainable fashion advertisement, is not that effective, at least not how it is used to today. The sustainable advertisement on social media is not making the consumers of generation Y to purchase sustainable and the messages and content they communicate is not affecting generation Ys intention to purchase sustainable clothing. The communication from fast fashion companies regarding sustainable advertisements on social media should either be revised in order to meet the consumers demands, or to use another media channel to reach generation Y.

Samhället står inför stora utmaningar att konsumera hållbart, vilket fast fashion-företag kritiseras för att bidra till. På grund av den ökade medvetenheten i samhället om hållbarhet har dessa företag börjat ta större ansvar för miljön genom att utveckla mer hållbara affärslösningar. I samband med detta kommer dock nya utmaningar, nämligen att nå ut till konsumenter med det bra arbete som görs så att de både blir intresserade av produkterna och påverkas till attkonsumera dessa. Kommunikationen som företag sänder ut har enligt tidigare forskning ansettsbristfällig ur flera aspekter, vilket innefattar hur den är utformad och vad den innehåller för attkunden ska känna att de hållbara plaggen är attraktiva att köpa. Marknadsföringen har nämligen inte uppfattats som trovärdig och konsumenter uppger att de upplever risker med de hållbara produktalternativen. I denna kvalitativa studie har innehållsanalyser gjorts på sex stora skandinaviska fast fashion-företags digitala kanaler, mer exakt Instagram samt hemsidor. Detta för att undersöka hur fast fashion-företag faktiskt kommunicerar idag och vad det är som karaktäriserar deras strategier. Studiens resultat syftar till att bidra med kunskap och tillvägagångssätt som modeföretag, medhållbara produktalternativ, kan ta hjälp av för att nå ut med dess budskap. Frågeställningarna som vi sökt svar på är hur fast fashion-företags visuella kommunikation av hållbara produktalternativ uttrycks samt vilka strategier som kan urskiljas för att företagen skall engagera konsumenter samt minska konsumenters upplevda risker med hållbara produktalternativ. Tidigare forskning har ofta fokuserat på att studera vad som påverkarkonsumenters köpintention och vilka strategier som ökar varumärkens värde. Med vår studiekom vi fram till hur kommunikationen faktiskt ser ut idag och resultatet visar att det finns en mängd olika strategier som företag använder sig av. Det företagen gör mest av är att kommunicera hållbarhetspåståenden, men de talar även till konsumenters personliga vinning. Det har också gått att urskilja att vissa fast fashion-företag använder sig av storytelling och word-of-mouth för att skapa engagemang kring hållbara produkter, men detta till en lägre grad. Utifrån deras utformning av kommunikationen går det vidare att se att de på olika sätt vill bjuda in till en hållbarhetsdialog med kunden, men det är eventuellt ett område som skulle kunna undersökas mer. De slutsatserna som går att dra är därmed att företag behöver arbeta mer med sin kommunikation för att konsumenter ska nås på ett sätt som uppfattas som trovärdigt vad gäller hållbarhetspåståenden. Företag bör även arbeta med att generera mer engagemanggällande hållbarhet. / In today’s society fast fashion companies are being criticized for promoting unsustainable consumption, which inhibit reaching the societal sustainability goals regarding consumption. But since there is an increased awareness about sustainability, these companies have started to take greater responsibility for the environment by developing more sustainable business solutions that enable a production of sustainable product alternatives. Although companies progress, this adaption arises new challenges regarding marketing communication. Today’s companies struggle to reach consumers with their new sustainability approach in order to both influence and make consumers interested to consume more sustainable products. According to previous research, the communication that companies send out has been considered deficient in several aspects. This includes what the messages in the marketing communication contain to make consumers feel that the sustainable garments are attractive to buy as well as its perceived reliability. In this qualitative study, we implement content analyzes on six Scandinavian fast fashion companies’ digital channels, more precisely Instagram and websites. This enables the possibility to analyze the communication of their more sustainable products and examine what characterizes their communication strategies. The study's result is aimed to contribute with more knowledge within the field and marketing strategies that fast fashion companies, with sustainable product alternatives, can use to reach out with their sustainability message regarding their sustainable products. The questions we sought to answer were how fast fashion companies expressed their visual communication of sustainable product alternatives. But also, which marketing strategies that could be distinguished in the company’s communication in order to both engage consumers and reduce consumers perceived risk with buying sustainable product alternatives. Previous research has often focused on studying what affects consumers purchasing intention and what kind of marketing strategies there are to increase brand value. With this as our framework, we came to know what the sustainability communication looks like today within fast fashion companies. The results show that there are a variety of strategies that companies use. Companies mostly communicate sustainability claims, but they also speak to consumers' personal gain. It has also been discernible that some fast fashion companies use storytelling and word-of-mouth to create engagement around sustainable products, but to a lesser extent. Based on the design of the communication, it is possible to see that they want to invite consumers in a sustainability dialogue when marketing their products, but this is an area that could be explored more. The conclusions that can be drawn are therefore that companies need to work more with their communication in order to reach consumers in a way that is perceived as credible in terms of sustainability claims. Companies should also work to generate more engagement around sustainability in their marketing strategies.

Environmental problems are growing, and efficiency and technology improvements have failedto reduce them in aggregate. Sustainable consumption, the alternative to supply-sideimprovements, addresses consumer demand and behavior to reduce environmental impacts. Thisstudy attempts to determine whether the EcoRunner website tool can increase pro-environmentalconsumer behavior. To provide context for this interdisciplinary research question, an extensiveliterature review, focusing on economics and psychology (especially consumer science), wasconducted. The effect of EcoRunner on consumers was empirically evaluated with a survey. Theresults of the survey show no statistically significant changes as a result of using EcoRunner;however, this result may be due to the small sample size (n=6). Since literature review and surveyresults suggest that using the tool increases pro-environmental consumer behavior, rerunning the survey with a larger sample group might yield statistically significant results. / <p>www.ima.kth.se</p>

La produzione globale di cibo provoca impatti sia sull’ ambiente che sulla salute umana. Tra le molteplici sfide che la comunità globale deve affrontare, le risorse di acqua dolce della Terra sono state identificate come pericolosamente soggette a una crescente pressione sia in termini quantitativi che qualitativi. Una profonda comprensione del nesso acqua-cibo è pertanto cruciale per lo sviluppo sostenibile. Nella presente tesi è stato applicato il concetto di Water Footprint (WF) calcolata attraverso differenti metodologie – ovvero attraverso approcci di tipo volumetrico e per la quantificazione dei potenziali impatti – al fine di stimare gli impatti sul consumo di acqua conseguenti produzione e consumo di cibo. Per valutare diverse tecniche di produzione, sono state confrontate le prestazioni ambientali di due vigneti coltivati con metodi di agricoltura convenzionale e biologica. Inoltre, sono stati studiati gli impatti sulle risorse idriche in relazione a diversi scenari di consumo alimentare in Italia e Danimarca, per indagare come le scelte alimentari dei consumatori rappresentino una strategia di riduzione degli impatti sull’ acqua. Nel calcolo degli impatti ambientali, i risultati hanno evidenziato il ruolo chiave dell'origine dei prodotti alimentari consumati, insieme alla tipologia dei prodotti e la riduzione di sprechi alimentari. / Global food production has increasingly affected both the environment and human health in substantial and remarkable ways. Among the many concerns global community has to face, Earth’s freshwater resources have been identified as dangerously subject to increasing pressure in the form of consumptive water use and pollution. A deep understanding of the water-food nexus is crucial to support the exploration of more suitable avenues for a sustainable development. In this work, the concept of water footprint (WF) presented by different methodologies – volumetric and impacts oriented approach – has been applied to link impacts on water consumption to the food production and consumption. With regard to the study of the production side, comparison of environmental performances of two vineyard where conventional and organic viticulture were applied, has been performed. Additionally, impacts on water resources related to different Italian and Danish dietary patterns have been investigated to understand the positive impacts that demand-side solutions can have. The studies highlighted that the origin of consumed foodstuffs played a key role in the calculation of local environmental impacts. Finally, the analysis showed that consumer’s choices could tackle environmental impact on water use by changing their consumption patterns, selecting less water-demanding products and reducing food waste.

Millennials as consumers are often more positive towards sustainable consumption than their actual consumption behavior shows. Furthermore, eco-labels are considered an easy way to show that a brand or product is environmentally friendly. They are perceived as reliable information and can therefore influence consumers' choices. However, the growing number and a general lack of knowledge about both the overall concept of sustainability and specific eco-labels complicate their use and can thus confuse consumers. Thus, our hope is that this study can add new insights into Swedish Millennials' attitudes towards eco- labels and in turn the impact of eco-labels on attitudes towards sustainable consumption. This study aims to explore what attitudes and perceptions Swedish Millennials have towards eco-labeled goods, and what impact they have on their perception of sustainable consumption. The empirical data is based on a qualitative research method with four semi- structured focus groups. The results of this study show that young consumers perceive eco- labels as confusing, expensive, difficult and not entirely reliable. With that said, we noted that the participants still felt that with a smaller price difference, they still bought products with eco-labels. Furthermore, the results of this study show that eco-labels have a mixed impact on consumers' attitudes towards sustainable consumption. Many felt that eco-labels made sustainable consumption seem difficult, and others felt that there were better alternatives such as shopping locally produced. Finally, it is our understanding that companies must focus on creating awareness, developing positive associations and strengthening brand trust in eco-labels. It will not only create higher brand loyalty, but also result in consumers continuing to demand sustainable products that are good for both the consumer and the planet.

Idag är konsumtion en av de största faktorerna till en ökad global uppvärmning, och människors negativa vanor till matkonsumtion ökar. I dagens samhälle är därför klimatet en viktig fråga, och klimatförändringarna som uppstår kan ha negativa konsekvenser på människors levnadssätt. E-handel har blivit vanligare då samhället blivit allt mer digitaliserat och detta är en av anledningarna till varför konsumtionen och människors beteende är ohållbart. Denna studie utfördes med hjälp av en designorienterad forskningsansats. Utifrån litteraturstudien identifierades de målbaserade spelelementen badges, progresionsmätare och poäng. De målbaserade spelelementen kombineras med riktlinjer för design av hållbar beteendeförändring, därefter var studiens syfte att undersöka huruvida kombinationen av dessa kan användas för att främja ett hållbart konsumtionsbeteende. Studiens resultat visar att kombinationen av målbaserade spelelement med riktlinjer för design av hållbar beteendeförändring kan leverera drivkraft, självmedvetenhet och vägledning vid konsumtionsprocessen. / Today, consumption is one of the biggest factors when it comes to increased global warming, and people’s negative habits of food consumption are increasing. In today's society the climate is an important issue, and the climate changes that occur may have negative consequences to the peoples mode of life. E-commerce has become more common because of the constant growth of digitalization, and this is one of the reasons why people's consumption behaviour is unsustainable. This study was performed with a designoriented research approach.  From the literature study we identified the goalbased game elements badges, progression meter and points. The goalbased game elements were combined with guidelines for design of sustainable behavior change, thereafter the purpose of the study was to investigate however the combination of goalbased game elements with guidelines of design for a sustainable behaviour change can promote a sustainable consumption behaviour. The results of the study shows that the combination of goalbased game elements with guidelines of design for a sustainable behaviour change can provide drive, self-awareness and guidance in the consumption process.