A transition toward a sustainable way of living is more pressing than ever. One link to achieving this transition is to increase the currently low level of sustainable consumption, and sustainability labeling has been shown to directly influence sustainable purchasing decisions. E-commerce retailers have recently picked up on a means to inform online shoppers about sustainable alternatives by introducing on their websites third-party and private sustainability labels as nudging instruments. However, despite its increasing relevance in practice, research lacks evidence about the availability and credibility of sustainability labeling in online retail. Our study is guided by the question of how online retailers use sustainability labels to communicate information on the sustainability of products to consumers. Our empirical research is based on a large-scale dataset containing sustainability information of nearly 17,000 fashion products of the leading online retailers in Germany Zalando and Otto. The results show that a large number of fashion products are tagged as sustainable, with two-thirds carrying a private label and one-third a third-party verified label. Only 14% of the tagged products, however, present credible third-party verified sustainability labels. This low percentage makes it challenging for consumers to comprehend to what degree a product is sustainable. The wide distribution of private labels indicates that most of the available sustainability information in the selected online shops addresses only single sustainability issues, preventing comparability. Furthermore, label heterogeneity can add to the confusion and uncertainty among consumers. Our practical recommendations support political initiatives that tackle the risk of greenwashing resulting from uncertified and weak sustainability information.
Introduction: The majority of people worldwide do not engage in enough physical activity which can have hazardous effects on both individual and public health. Increasing physical activity levels in our daily lives is therefore a key concern within public health initiatives. Making an active choice to take the stairs over alternatives is an effective and freely accessible way to increase daily physical activity. Research has shown that alongside prompts, role models can be influential in increasing stair use among pedestrians. Presently, no research has been conducted comparing the role model effect towards passive and active behaviour. We conducted a pilot study, seeking to confirm the effect of role-models on stair use and also investigating the effect of role-models on escalator use. Method: In the railway station "Zoologischer Garten" in Berlin, a role model either climbed the stairs or took the escalator in front of unknown pedestrians to reach the platform in sequences of 3 minutes. Two researchers counted per intervention-sequence the number of people taking the stairs or the escalator respectively against a control measurement with no intervention. In total pedestrian behaviour was observed over a period of 108 minutes and the choices of a total of 1778 people were recorded. A chi-squared test was used to measure the intervention effects. The effects of role-models on active and passive behaviour were compared. Results: Stair use increased from 29% to 33% in the presence of a stair role model (net increase 14%). Escalator use increased from 71% to 74% in the presence of an escalator role model (net increase 4%). A chi-squared test shows that participants' decisions on whether to take the stairs or the escalator were significantly different depending on the intervention type (Stair-, Escalator-Model, no model) participants were exposed to. Neither of these differences was found to be statistically significant when estimating logistic regression models. Traffic volume was weakly significantly (p < 0.1) linked with an increased likelihood of participants using the stairs when traffic volume increases. Discussion: Role models can impact physical activity levels among citizens on an unconscious and often anonymous level. For public health experts it is important to recognise that people can be nudged by role models both towards passive and active behaviour. This pilot study provides the first evidence of the concept that everyone in society can and should be an effective role model for increasing physical activity levels in our daily lives and should be aware of negative role model effects when demonstrating passive behaviours. This information can be relevant when creating public health messages. Future studies should observe a larger sample size and distinguish between a number of different factors (such as weather, time of day, weekday vs, weekend) that might influence the role model effect on stair or escalator use.
The production, shipping, usage, and disposal of consumer goods have a substantial impact on greenhouse gas emissions and the depletion of resources. Modern retail platforms rely heavily on Machine Learning (ML) for their search and recommender systems. Thus, ML can potentially support efforts towards more sustainable consumption patterns, for example, by accounting for sustainability aspects in product search or recommendations. However, leveraging ML potential for reaching sustainability goals requires data on sustainability. Unfortunately, no open and publicly available database integrates sustainability information on a product-by-product basis. In this work, we present the GreenDB, which fills this gap. Based on search logs of millions of users, we prioritize which products users care about most. The GreenDB schema extends the well-known schema.org Product definition and can be readily integrated into existing product catalogs to improve sustainability information available for search and recommendation experiences. We present our proof of concept implementation of a scraping system that creates the GreenDB dataset.
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