The role of consumer preferences in reducing material intensity of electronic products

Barbara Kasulaitis, Callie W. Babbitt and Anna Christina Tyler

Journal of Industrial Ecology, 2021, vol. 25, issue 2, 435-447

Abstract: Advances in electronic technologies have the potential to enable energy efficiency and climate mitigation but may also create climate impacts due to resource and energy use across the product life cycle. These tradeoffs revolve around the way electronics are designed, manufactured, purchased, used, and disposed and the ability to shift these systems toward resource efficiency. A promising strategy for consumer electronics is to facilitate adoption of lightweight, energy‐efficient, multi‐functional devices as replacements for the many single‐function electronic products currently owned. However, consumer preferences and willingness to make this shift remain unclear. Here, a survey of 1,011 adults across the United States demonstrated theoretical potential for material efficiency gains, as respondents indicated willingness to accept a smaller number of multi‐functional devices, such as smartphones, as replacements for specialized electronics, including digital cameras, camcorders, and MP3 players. However, when actually choosing electronics to be used for common functions, such as watching TV, getting directions, surfing the Internet, or writing an email, consumers indicated strong preferences for products with the highest perceived quality for those tasks. Multi‐functional devices such as tablets were only reported to be used for a small number of the functions they can provide and were typically redundant complements to existing products, rather than substitutes. Findings suggest a limit to material intensity reductions via device convergence alone. Dematerialization of this sector will likely require coupled efforts to design multi‐functional products for improved performance while also improving the material and climate footprint of products that consumers are unwilling to replace. This article met the requirements for a gold‐gold JIE data openness badge described at http://jie.click/badges.

Date: 2021
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