The Environmental Impact of Consumption Lifestyles: Ethically Minded Consumption vs. Tightwads

Laurie Touchette and Marcelo Vinhal Nepomuceno
Additional contact information
Laurie Touchette: HEC Montréal, 3000 Chemin de la Côte-Sainte-Catherine, Montréal, QC H3T 2A7, Canada
Marcelo Vinhal Nepomuceno: HEC Montréal, 3000 Chemin de la Côte-Sainte-Catherine, Montréal, QC H3T 2A7, Canada

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 23, 1-22

Abstract: This study investigates the environmental impact of anti-consumption lifestyles and compares it to environmental concern and ethically minded consumption. Environmental impact was measured in a sample of 357 individuals with a carbon footprint calculator capturing all greenhouse gases released by an individual’s activities. Three types of anti-consumption lifestyles were considered: frugality, voluntary simplicity, and tightwadism. Results suggest that tightwadism is negatively associated with environmental impact. This negative association is stronger when participants are knowledgeable about the emissions impact of their behaviors. These findings suggest that tightwadism can lead to positive outcomes to achieve sustainability. Surprisingly, frugality and voluntary simplicity, as well as environmental concern, are not significantly associated with environmental impact, whereas ethically minded consumption correlates positively with the latter. This study demonstrates that increasing consumers’ environmental and ethical concerns alone might not be an effective way to lead them towards a more sustainable lifestyle. Such findings have important implications for sustainability and public policy makers.

Keywords: anti-consumption lifestyle; sustainability; environmental impact; tightwadism; voluntary simplicity; frugality; environmental concern; ethically minded consumption (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/23/9954/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/23/9954/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:23:p:9954-:d:452806

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().