Marketing for Sustainable Development

13Digitalization in the Service of Socially Responsible Consumption? Focus on Food Consumption¹

Christine GONZALEZ¹, Béatrice SIADOU-MARTIN² and Jean-Marc FERRANDI³

¹ Argumans, University of Le Mans, France

² MRM, University of Montpellier, France

³ LEMNA, ONIRIS, Nantes University, France

13.1. Introduction

“We have run out of excuses and we are running out of time. We have come here to let you know that change is coming, whether you like it or not.”² These were the words of Greta Thunberg, the young Swedish environmentalist, at the 24th Global Climate Conference. While the need to change behavior in production and consumption to respond to current environmental challenges is recognized, it remains the case that actual behavioral change has not yet been seen.

Indeed, in many areas, such as sorting waste, consuming environmentally friendly products or limiting food waste, consumers are developing an awareness of and a positive attitude towards responsible consumption, even as the observation of practices highlights the weakness of actual change. The marketing literature has widely addressed this attitude-behavior gap, as well as the information processing strategies that the consumer tries very hard to develop to justify it (Rodhain 2013; Séré de Lanauze and Siadou-Martin 2014). Intuitively, it seems that difficulties in adoption can involve two areas: information and action. In other words, are consumers informed about which behaviors they should avoid and which they should ...