Concerning the sustainable consumption, aspects for behavioral changes are complex. As described in Figure, the changing of behaviors can be understood in terms of the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, I. 1991; Armitage, C., & Conner, M., 2001; Grizzell, J., 2007).
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Figure 28: Theory of planned behavior (Holland, 2011 adapted by Ajzen, 1991)
Furthermore, other researchers (Prochaska et al., 1998) developed the Stages of Change Model that describes the process by which all behaviors change (Figure 28 )
Figure 29: Stages of Change Model (Holland, 2011 adapted by Prochaska et al., 1998)
Other factors which can undoubtedly affect mass behaviour change, are rules.
However, the change they make may not always be what is expected. A large body of literature exists that deals with barriers to behavioral change. According to Faber et al. (2012), barriers to behavioral change are factors that prevent an
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intention from being developed or as factors that prevent an intention turning into a behavior. An often used distinction is that between individual barriers and societal barriers. Although many consumer decisions are not made in a rationalized way, analyzing primary motives for certain choices helps to find barriers for behavioral change. Consumers make trade-offs between advantages and disadvantages of certain lifestyles and product choices. These advantages and disadvantages may be related to costs, comfort, health, convenience, safety, quality, etc. Based on a review of the literature, in the table a categorization of barriers for behavioral change is provided (see Table 5):
Factors Barriers
Individual (internal) barriers
Social and psychological attitude, interest, beliefs, feelings and self-efficacy/confidence
Knowledge-based limitations in knowledge of the subject, or the ease with which it can be found.
Unconscious behaviour routines and habits
Demographic age, education, gender, income.
Societal (external) barriers
Infrastructural lack of necessary infrastructure(e.g. people are less motivated to take the bike if no good structure of cycling lanes exists)
Cultural social norms and traditions, (e.g. the custom to eat meat every day)
Economic financial constraints (e.g. people's ability to invest in environmentally friendly technologies may be limited by financial constraints)
Institutional law, politics and organisational structures (e.g., the organisational structure of a firm may be a barrier for working at home)
Table 5: Barriers for behavioral change (Faber et al., 2012)
85 3.9.3 Final remarks
At the end of this paragraph, it would be useful to introduce some concepts which stem from socio-economic science and relate to socio-technical barriers. Firstly, the term “regime” means coherent and dominant rules and institutions that guide actors (e.g. firms, users, policy actors, scientists) in a specific direction, by enabling and constraining their choices. A distinction among can be made between:
Regulative rules or institutions: formal rules, laws, sanctions, incentive structures, reward and cost structures, governance systems, power systems, protocols, standards, procedures
Normative rules or institutions: values, norms, role expectations, authority systems, duty, codes of conduct
Cognitive rules or institutions: priorities, problem agendas, beliefs, bodies of knowledge (paradigms), models of reality, categories, classifications, and jargon/language.
When innovations do not come easily, the principal cause lays on existing regimes characterized by a locked-in mechanism. The first explanation for the term “lock-in” outcomes from the idea that the nature and direction of technological advance is strongly shaped by the cognitive framework of actors. Nelson & Winter (1977) use the term technological regimes to describe these frames while Dosi (1982) refers to them as technological paradigms.
Both, however, point to the existence of certain “rules”, “heuristics” or
“principles” that define the boundaries of thought and action by members of the technological community (engineers, firms, technology institutes, etc.).
These include, for example, engineering ideas about the nature of the technological problem and the worthwhile set of possible solutions. The key concept of lock-in is that technologies and technological systems follow specific paths that are difficult and costly to escape. Consequently, they tend
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to persist for extended periods, even in the face of competition from potentially superior substitutes. Thus, lock-in is said to represent the continued use of a range of supposedly inferior technologies. Lock-in also means that a particular technology or product is dominant. Another concept are persistent problems which are embedded in the dominant regime/institutions. Persistent problems are complex and uncertain because they involve many and various actors who have to work together for a solution but most often have varied goals. For this reason, persistent problems are difficult to solve and often recur notwithstanding various efforts to overcome them.
3.10 Conclusion
In this chapter, the different approaches to face sustainability challenge has been investigated. The approach towards sustainable innovation has evolved from pollution control, the end-of-pipe approach, to preventive cleaner production and life-cycle approaches till the emerging approaches as closed-loop production and industrial ecology. Finally, sustainable innovation approach has been expanded till to include both the production and the consumption side. Actually, at the production side, it is emerged that business has contributed significantly to sustainable innovation via a variety of mechanisms: ‘end-of-pipe,’ cleaner production, eco design, closed-loop and new business models. Generally, the primary focus of innovation in sustainable production has based on technological advances, typically with products or processes as eco-innovation targets, and with modification or re-design as principal mechanisms. Nevertheless, even with a strong focus on technology, a number of complementary changes have functioned as key drivers for these developments. Effectively, the changes have been either organizational or institutional in nature. On the other hand, several barriers still affect the achievement of a radical change in the production. The result is the maintenance of current business-as-usual trend. There is the need to indentify novel approach for sustainable innovation which contribute to long-term
continuity and help to form, in another way, a win-win situation, then businesses have a clear motivation to pursue sustainability goals. Furthermore, the chapter has also explored the innovation at the consumption side. Really, consumers have a crucial role in the sustainable innovation process. For example, they can drive change via voting power in the market, and via their roles as political agent, NGO, worker, investor and citizen, capable of bottom-up action. At the same time, consumers may also find that sustainable choices do not always lead to the same quality or level of experience as less sustainable choices. The chapter has described the barriers that make consumers locked into contexts due to certain
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behavioral changes difficult. In this context, the perspectives for future sustainable innovation does not necessarily require a new technological product or process, but rather can involve changing aspects (or the entirety) of a value structure. The emerged necessity is to identify approach which change the business-as-usual practices by changing customers’ habits so that resources are used more efficiently, while functions or utilities are still delivered. This changes is in thinking and doing things differently and in making other agents in a system perform differently that bring about systemic transformation. Therefore, the heart of sustainable innovation approach cannot necessarily be represented adequately by a single set of target and mechanism characteristics. Instead, sustainable innovation seems best examined and developed using a range of characteristics varying from modifications to creations across products, processes, organizations, social and institutions. The characteristics of a particular innovation furthermore depend on the observer’s perspective. The analytical framework can be
considered a first step towards more systematic analysis of sustainable innovation.
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