Measuring What Matters in Sustainable Consumption: An Integrative Framework for the Selection of Relevant Behaviors

Abstract

In the face of existing obstacles in the interdisciplinary research on sustainable consumption behaviors, we argue for the need of an integrative framework from an interdisciplinary perspective. Such a framework is presented in the form of a three-dimensional cube model of sustainable consumption behavior (SCB-cube) extended by a fourth impact dimension. The model has two purposes for application: First, to systematize existing research on different behaviors on a common taxonomy and second, to facilitate the selection of relevant sustainable consumption behaviors in social sustainability research based on impact. We critically appraise existing intent-and impact-based research approaches on the four key dimensions of the SCBcube, focusing on the ecological and socio-economic impacts of consumption behaviors. Recommendations for the selection of relevant behaviors for empirical behavioral research are given, using the SCB-cube as a guiding heuristic. The main audience for this model is social science researchers measuring sustainable consumer behaviors on the individual level. Copyright

An Ontology-Based Knowledge Modelling for a Sustainability Assessment Domain

“…Some of them reflect to the entrepreneurship sustainability domain but a major part refers to selected sustainability dimensions. An analysis of the literature shows a wide range of domains and fields in which they are applied (e.g., the field of transport infrastructure [65], systems for public rental housing communities [66], SMEs [67], sustainability in purchasing and supply management [14,[48][49][50][51][52]59], cultural factors of sustainable energy [35], sustainable consumption [8], societal progress and others. There are only exemplary domains and fields that should, in fact, be exclusively aimed at showing the diversity of applied applications.…”

“…Depending on which indicators, measures, or metrics are used, the results of impact assessments can vary considerably in either sustainability dimension [8]. Thus, an important challenge is weighing the relevance of different indicators measures or metrics for an overall balance [68].…”

“…Hofstede [35] introduced the cultural framework to compare cultures, by assigning scores for each of six dimensions. Furthermore, the necessity of an integrative framework from an interdisciplinary perspective promotes the authors [8] to elaborate a three-dimensional cube model of sustainable consumption behaviour (SCB-cube) extended by a fourth impact dimension. Additionally, the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) established a framework of monitoring the variety of sustainability indicators for evaluating the performance of government towards sustainable development goals [1].…”

“…The aim is to pursue plans and activities that make a suitable contribution to sustainable development (SD) [5]. Research on sustainable development aims to improve our understanding of interactions between natural and social systems [6] and to guide these interactions toward more sustainable trajectories [7,8]. The concept of sustainable development has been an important focal point for decision-makers in business [9].…”

“…According to [1,10] to ensure an appropriate level of sustainability new challenges are required by adapting an appropriate solution to a given decision situation. The existing number of the various approaches and their narrow areas of practical applicability [3,9], show that proper matching is not a trivial task and that the selection process is complex and difficult, however [8]. It should be pointed that appraising the selected approaches…”