REFLECTING AND LEARNING ABOUT SUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION ONLINE. The oxymoron of a food retailer’s effort to educate the general public about sustainable consumption issues.

Abstract

The general purpose of this study is to explore how respondents understand a Swedish food retailer’s recommendations and efforts to educate the general public on sustainable consumption issues on their website. More specifically the aim is to explore how these recommendations interplay with the respondents’ reasoning, if there is an attitude-behaviour gap in what they already know and agree with and if they express willingness to change habits in line with more sustainable consumption. Characteristics that distinguish this research from other studies in the field are: focus on learning and use of online tools (a retailer's website). Multiple studies have been done on sustainability messages in offline stores, while there is very little research on how these issues are presented by retailers online.