How to stimulate environmentally friendly consumption: Evidence from a nationwide social experiment to promote eco-friendly coffee

Ryo Takahashi

No 1917, Working Papers from Waseda University, Faculty of Political Science and Economics

Abstract: We investigate the effect of information provision about environmentally friendly coffee on consumers' purchasing behaviors. We use a dataset from a nationwide social experiment in Japan involving over 10,000 vending machines serving brewed coffee. We also provide empirical insights into the mechanisms for stimulating eco-friendly consumption. Our results demonstrate that informing consumers about the product's eco-friendliness significantly increases eco-friendly coffee sales (+7%) only in social spaces (e.g., office buildings) and not in non-social spaces (e.g., shopping malls). Consumers in social spaces might be motivated to purchase eco-friendly coffee to build a “green” reputation among community members after receiving such information.

Keywords: information provision; social experiment; sustainability labels; coffee certification; , green reputation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 G14 M31 O13 Q13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 63 pages
Date: 2019-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env, nep-exp and nep-mkt
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wap:wpaper:1917

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