From willingness to engage to willingness to pay: A behavioral experiment on green consumer information in a digital product passport

Zack Dorner (), Steven Tucker (), Abraham Zhang () and Anna Heuber ()
Additional contact information
Zack Dorner: Lincoln University, https://www.lincoln.ac.nz/
Steven Tucker: University of Waikato, https://www.management.ac.nz/
Abraham Zhang: Adam Smith Business Svchool, University of Glasgow, https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/business/
Anna Heuber: University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna

Working Papers in Economics from University of Waikato

Abstract: Information represents the "third wave" of environmental policy. Existing evidence shows consumers increase their willingness to pay (WTP) for environmentally friendly products with clear labelling. However, there is a gap in the literature regarding whether consumers have a willingness to engage (WTE) with detailed information, for example, through a Digital Product Passport (DPP). This technological innovation is part of the European Union's new circular economy action plan. In our theoretical model, a green consumer decides whether to invest in information on how to mitigate their environmental damage, but at a cognitive cost. We test the model in a lab experiment selling an environmentally friendly toothbrush, but information about its environmental credentials is only available through a DPP. We find education on the DPP's purpose is key to increasing revealed WTE when a DPP is available. Participants with a high stated WTE engage with the DPP regardless; the increase in revealed WTE comes from those with a lower stated WTE. Engagement with the DPP, in the case that it contains positive environmental information, increases WTP. The policy implications of our results are that education about the purpose of the DPP is required in order to increase the likelihood of actual consumer engagement with it, as long as it is user friendly. However, engagement with a DPP may not lead to further shifts in environmental orientation and behavior. Our study also demonstrates novel measures of WTE, and how these can be used to understand pro-environmental consumer behavior in a theoretically informed manner.

Keywords: Circular economy; digital product passport; consumer behavior; ecolabel; green consumerism; information-based instruments; pro-environmental behavior (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C92 D12 D18 D63 D64 D91 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 54 pages
Date: 2025-02-21
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dcm, nep-ene, nep-env and nep-exp
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://repec.its.waikato.ac.nz/wai/econwp/2503.pdf (application/pdf)

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:wai:econwp:25/03

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers in Economics from University of Waikato Private Bag 3105, Hamilton, New Zealand, 3240. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Geua Boe-Gibson ().