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Consciousness for sustainable consumption: scale development and new insights in the economic dimension of consumers’ sustainability

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Abstract

The “triple bottom line” concept (planet, people, and profit) represents an important guideline for the sustainable, hence future-oriented, development of societies and for the behaviors of all societal members. For institutions promoting societal change, as well as for companies being confronted with growing expectations regarding compelling contributions to sustainable changes, it is of great importance to know if, and to what extent, consumers have already internalized the idea of sustainability. Against the background of existing research gaps regarding a comprehensive measurement of the consciousness for sustainable consumption (CSC), the authors present the result of a scale development. Consciousness was operationalized by weighting personal beliefs with the importance attached by consumers to sustainability dimensions. Four separate tests of the CSC scale indicated an appropriate psychometric quality of the scale and provided support for this new measurement approach that incorporates the environmental, social and economic dimensions of sustainability.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Marketing, University of Potsdam, August-Bebel-Straße 89, 14482, Potsdam, Germany

    Ingo Balderjahn & Mathias Peyer

  2. Marketing Management, HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management, Jahnallee 59, 04109, Leipzig, Germany

    Anja Buerke & Manfred Kirchgeorg

  3. Institute of Marketing, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Abt-Jerusalem-Straße 4, 38106, Braunschweig, Germany

    Barbara Seegebarth

  4. Institute of Marketing and Management, Leibniz University of Hannover, Koenigsworther Platz 1, 30167, Hannover, Germany

    Klaus-Peter Wiedmann

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  1. Ingo Balderjahn
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  2. Anja Buerke
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  3. Manfred Kirchgeorg
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  4. Mathias Peyer
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  5. Barbara Seegebarth
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  6. Klaus-Peter Wiedmann
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Correspondence to Ingo Balderjahn.

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Besides the unknown reviewers we would like to especially thank the editor for her proposals and professional support.

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Balderjahn, I., Buerke, A., Kirchgeorg, M. et al. Consciousness for sustainable consumption: scale development and new insights in the economic dimension of consumers’ sustainability. AMS Rev 3, 181–192 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13162-013-0057-6

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