ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the findings of the consumer survey designed to evaluate cognitive dimensions of sustainable consumption and prevailing trends and values. The overall aim with the survey was to establish how consumer characteristics and values affect the extent to which consumers in China engage in behaviours reflective of food sustainability. The chapter assesses consumer characteristics and values of both a self-oriented nature (e.g. health concerns) and an others-oriented nature (e.g. altruism). The survey also considered two types of consumer behaviour reflective of food sustainability – sustainable consumption behaviours such as consuming homegrown or fair trade labelled goods and sustainable curtailment behaviours, such as reducing one’s consumption of particular products. Overall, the chapter explains how and why consumers surveyed largely report sustainable consumption and curtailment behaviours being influenced by “self-related” reasons including health matters and frugality.
