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

We studied to what extent perceived adoption norms affect the likelihood of adopting sustainable innovations, next to evaluations of the instrumental, environmental and symbolic attributes of these innovations. As hypothesised, results showed that people are more likely to adopt a sustainable innovation the more they evaluate the attributes of these sustainable innovations favourably and the more they think significant others would consider adoption (i.e., when adoption norms are strong). Moreover, we hypothesised and found that positive evaluations of the symbolic attributes are more likely to promote the adoption of sustainable innovations when people expect that few significant others would consider adoption. These findings suggest that weak adoption norms that are typical in the early adoption stage may both inhibit and promote adoption of sustainable innovations, via different routes.

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.