Abstract

Critical to the environmental success of sustainable innovations is the adoption by consumers. The consensus is that instrumental shortcomings of sustainable innovations inhibit their adoption. However, we argue that the adoption of sustainable innovations does not exclusively depend on their instrumental attributes. In addition, people may be motivated to adopt sustainable innovations because of their positive environmental and symbolic attributes, that is, they benefit the environment and can be used to signal positive characteristics to oneself and others. We studied the significance of instrumental, environmental and symbolic attributes for the adoption of two sustainable innovations: electric cars (Study 1) and local renewable energy systems (Study 2), following two methods. Results showed that when asked directly, participants claimed that instrumental and environmental attributes are most important for their decision to adopt sustainable innovations, while symbolic attributes were rated as less important. Interestingly, evaluations of the symbolic and environmental attributes of sustainable innovations, but not evaluations of their instrumental attributes, predicted different indicators of adoption (i.e., interest in, the acceptability of, and intention to adopt these sustainable innovations), suggesting that the significance of symbolic motives for adopting sustainable innovations may not be recognized by consumers. Moreover, favorable evaluations of symbolic attributes particularly enhanced interest in and acceptability of sustainable innovation when participants evaluated the instrumental attributes more negatively, but not when instrumental attributes were evaluated relatively positively. This suggests that the instrumental drawbacks of sustainable innovations may sometimes strengthen their positive signal, which can promote interest in sustainable innovations. (c) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Abstract

Most Latin American countries face important environmental and societal problems associated with an increase in car traffic, and only recently, transport policies aimed at reducing these harmful consequences of car use have begun to be discussed and put on the public agenda of these countries. Surprisingly, little is known about the factors influencing the acceptability of transport policies and intentions to reduce car use in Latin America, as studies on acceptability of transport policies have typically been conducted in Europe. Previous evidence from European samples - where reducing car used had been widely discussed - showed that the Value-Belief-Norm (VBN) theory of environmentalism was an adequate theoretical framework to predict the acceptability of a transport pricing policy, as well as the intention to reduce car use when this policy would be implemented. But can these results be generalised to non-European samples? In this paper, we report results of a questionnaire study among 160 participants from Buenos Aires, Argentina, aimed to test the VBN theory. We found that the VBN theory was indeed also successful in explaining policy acceptability and intention to reduce car use in Argentina. In addition, we found support for the causal structure of the variables in VBN theory. Interestingly, biospheric and hedonic values were also directly and significantly related to feelings of moral obligation when intermediate variables were controlled for. These results suggest that normative considerations, activated by values, indeed predict policy acceptability and the intention to reduce car use in Argentina and that these considerations should be taken into account to increase the acceptability of policies aimed at reducing car use. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Abstract

Critical to the environmental success of sustainable innovations is the adoption by consumers. The consensus is that instrumental shortcomings of sustainable innovations inhibit their adoption. However, we argue that the adoption of sustainable innovations does not exclusively depend on their instrumental attributes. In addition, people may be motivated to adopt sustainable innovations because of their positive environmental and symbolic attributes, that is, they benefit the environment and can be used to signal positive characteristics to oneself and others. We studied the significance of instrumental, environmental and symbolic attributes for the adoption of two sustainable innovations: electric cars (Study 1) and local renewable energy systems (Study 2), following two methods. Results showed that when asked directly, participants claimed that instrumental and environmental attributes are most important for their decision to adopt sustainable innovations, while symbolic attributes were rated as less important. Interestingly, evaluations of the symbolic and environmental attributes of sustainable innovations, but not evaluations of their instrumental attributes, predicted different indicators of adoption (i.e., interest in, the acceptability of, and intention to adopt these sustainable innovations), suggesting that the significance of symbolic motives for adopting sustainable innovations may not be recognized by consumers. Moreover, favorable evaluations of symbolic attributes particularly enhanced interest in and acceptability of sustainable innovation when participants evaluated the instrumental attributes more negatively, but not when instrumental attributes were evaluated relatively positively. This suggests that the instrumental drawbacks of sustainable innovations may sometimes strengthen their positive signal, which can promote interest in sustainable innovations. (c) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.