
Open access
Date
2020-05Type
- Working Paper
ETH Bibliography
yes
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Abstract
In a so-called overpopulated world, sustainable consumption is of existential importance. The expanding spectrum of product choices and their production complexity challenge consumers to make informed and value-sensitive decisions. Recent approaches based on (personalized) psychological manipulation are often intransparent, potentially privacy-invasive and inconsistent with informational self-determination. In contrast, responsible consumption based on informed choices currently requires reasoning to an extent that tends to overwhelm human cognitive capacity. As a result, a collective shift towards sustainable consumption remains a grand challenge. Here we demonstrate a novel personal shopping assistant that empowers a value-sensitive design and leverages sustainability awareness, using experts’ knowledge and “wisdom of the crowd” for transparent product information and explainable products ratings. Real-world field experiments in two supermarkets confirm higher sustainability awareness and a bottom-up behavioral shift towards more sustainable consumption. These results encourage novel business models for retailers and producers, ethically aligned with consumer values and higher sustainability. Show more
Permanent link
https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000450518Publication status
publishedExternal links
Journal / series
arXivPages / Article No.
Publisher
Cornell UniversitySubject
Sustainable Consumption,; Recommender Systems; Human-Computer Interaction; Distributed Computing,; Information Retrieval; Machine LearningOrganisational unit
03784 - Helbing, Dirk / Helbing, Dirk
Funding
688364 - Instant Gratification for Collective Awareness and Sustainable Consumerism (SBFI)
Related publications and datasets
Is cited by: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.8313257
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ETH Bibliography
yes
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