ABSTRACT
This chapter describes a user study focusing on the complex interests of consumers and hindrances to green consumption; the findings are intended to guide design and communication that motivate behaviour change towards ecologically sustainable consumption. A meta-analysis of earlier green consumption and design studies reveals the complex nature of initiating sustainable consumption practices, barriers to ecologically sustainable consumption, interventions used in products and systems-based solutions. An approach was developed based on visual stimulus and user-driven exploration to generate emotionally, socially and culturally thick user studies. The research suggests that the hindrances to positive attitudes towards green consumption and the practical behaviour gap lay especially in the early stages of the customer service journey. For instance, easily searchable and understandable information about sustainable options and their accessibility and availability are lacking but important. Social acceptance is also vital. The sustainable consumption themes emerging from the analysis of the respondents’ stories can provide a service-path-related framework as a starting point for designing sustainable solutions. The suitability of the service design approach also points to the requirement of case-based contextual design research in addition to using this frame or other typical behaviour interventions used by researchers. As the phenomenon of sustainable behaviour change is complex and strong sustainable solutions are often systems based, the results also suggest that sustainable design for behaviour change requires double complexity in design: designing the complex, user-driven, contextual service paths for the benefit of consumers and organising the multiple stakeholder-based production systems for these service systems.
