Project
Understanding and addressing the motivations and barriers of sustainale clothing consumption
Textiles. It is unclear which exact needs consumers fulfil in buying (new)clothing, and which of factors could important drivers or barriers for dematerialization. We seek to understand how 1) knowledge about sustainable textiles and behaviours, 2) needs and motivations to consume (less)clothing or choose (non-)sustainable options, and 3) the barriers that keep consumers from these dematerialization behaviours can drive internal motivations. In addition, we examine which financialincentives (e.g., subsidies making sustainable materials more financially attractive, and fines or taxes making fast fashion more expensive) are deemed acceptable to consumers.
One important pathway to de-materialization entails a change in consumer behaviour.
This project provides concrete insights into:
- The determinants for dematerialization behaviours
- How communication interventions could address the relevant
determinants to encourage internal motivations to change
behaviour - the potential financial incentives that could drive external
motivations to change behaviour.
What are the key activities or steps?
- Focus groups to gain qualitative insights into the motivations
(needs) and barriers for sustainable clothing behaviours, consumer
knowledge of sustainable textiles and behaviours, and their
acceptance of different financial policy instruments. - A large-scale survey to verify the acceptance of policy instruments, and to examine the relative importance of motivations and barriers, and how knowledge, motivations, and barriers differ between people.
- Development of a set of interventions addressing specific motivations and barriers relevant to specific groups. With a longitudinal experiment we will test the the immediate and longterm intervention effects on knowledge, intentions, attitudes, and behaviour (using agent-based modelling).