Sustainability & Consumer behavior towards Sustainability in Norway and Sweden

AimSustainability has become an important factor to consider while buying goods and services. People are being more conscious toward environmental impacts of products and services. This attitude has motivated many businesses to develop their production in contact with sustainability. The aim of this paper is to investigate different consumer behaviors toward sustainability in general and in relation to vehicles in Norway and Sweden.ApproachThe project has been embarked by dividing it into two tasks.1. Analyzing past, present and future development, growth and importance of sustainability concept. Describe the role of Government authorities in Norway and Sweden to promote sustainable consumption.2. Investigating important factors of consumer behaviors which influence their buying decision toward sustainable products in general and in relation to sustainable vehicles. Highlight the role of vehicle manufacturing companies to promote sustainable consumption.MethodA research has been conducted in order to explore consumer behavior toward sustainability in Norway and Sweden. Research is based on Document study and primary research which include questionnaire survey with consumers and interviews with vehicle dealers. In addition an expert inquiry is conducted to light up consumer intensions in Norway and Sweden toward sustainability.ResultsThe result of investigation has been revealed in shape of analyses and conclusion at the end. A comparison has been made between primary research and secondary research and findings are overlapping. Sustainable vehicles are being more popular among consumers in Norway and Sweden. Consumption trends are changing over time and environmental friendly attitudes are more developing among Swedish consumers as compared to Norwegian.

Debunking Weak Sustainable Consumption : Towards Strong Sustainable Consumption Governance

Achieving sustainable consumption patterns is a crucial step on the way towards sustainability. The scientific knowledge used to decide which priorities to set and how to enforce them has to converge with societal, political, and economic initiatives on various levels: from individual household decision-making to agreements and commitments in global policy processes. The aim of this thesis is to draw a comprehensive and systematic picture of sustainable consumption and to do this it develops the concept of Strong Sustainable Consumption Governance. In this concept, consumption is understood as resource consumption. This includes consumption by industries, public consumption, and household consumption. Next to the availability of resources (including the available sink capacity of the ecosystem) and their use and distribution among the Earth’s population, the thesis also considers their contribution to human well-being. This implies giving specific attention to the levels and patterns of consumption. Methods: The thesis introduces the terminology and various concepts of Sustainable Consumption and of Governance. It briefly elaborates on the methodology of Critical Realism and its potential for analysing Sustainable Consumption. It describes the various methods on which the research is based and sets out the political implications a governance approach towards Strong Sustainable Consumption may have. Two models are developed: one for the assessment of the environmental relevance of consumption activities, another to identify the influences of globalisation on the determinants of consumption opportunities. Results: One of the major challenges for Strong Sustainable Consumption is that it is not in line with the current political mainstream: that is, the belief that economic growth can cure all our problems. So, the proponents have to battle against a strong headwind. Their motivation however is the conviction that there is no alternative. Efforts have to be taken on multiple levels by multiple actors. And all of them are needed as they constitute the individual strings that together make up the rope. However, everyone must ensure that they are pulling in the same direction. It might be useful to apply a carrot and stick strategy to stimulate public debate. The stick in this case is to create a sense of urgency. The carrot would be to articulate better the message to the public that a shrinking of the economy is not as much of a disaster as mainstream economics tends to suggest. In parallel to this it is necessary to demand that governments take responsibility for governance. The dominant strategy is still information provision. But there is ample evidence that hard policies like regulatory instruments and economic instruments are most effective. As for Civil Society Organizations it is recommended that they overcome the habit of promoting Sustainable (in fact green) Consumption by using marketing strategies and instead foster public debate in values and well-being. This includes appreciating the potential of social innovation. A countless number of such initiatives are on the way but their potential is still insufficiently explored. Beyond the question of how to multiply such approaches, it is also necessary to establish political macro structures to foster them.

The PerCues framework and its application for sustainable mobility

This paper presents a framework, design and study of an ambient persuasive interface. We introduce a novel framework of persua sive Cues in Ambient Intelligence (perCues). Based on this framework we designed an application for mobile devices. The application aims to persuade people to abstain from using their cars and to use public mass transportation instead in order to reduce emissions. It contains a bus schedule and information about the pollution status. We evaluated the application in two successive studies regarding user acceptance, oppor tune moments of use and persuasive effects. The perCues received a high acceptance due to its benefit for the users. The results confirm the im portance of opportune moment and user acceptance for persuasion. The findings also indicate the persuasive potential of perCues.

Potential to attract drivers out of their cars in dense urban areas.

Purpose Sustainable mobility urban policies intend reducing car use and increasing walking, cycling and public transport. However, this transfer from private car to these more sustainable modes is only a real alternative where distances are small and the public transport supply competitive enough. This paper proposes a methodology to calculate the number of trips that can be transferred from private car to other modes in city centres. Method The method starts analyzing which kind of trips cannot change its mode (purposes, conditions, safety , etc.), and then setting a process to determine under which conditions trips made by car between given O-D pairs can be transferable. Then, the application of demand models allow to determine which trips fulfil the transferability conditions. The process test the possibility of transfer in a sequential way: firs to walking, then cycling and finally to public transport. Results The methodology is tested through its application to the city of Madrid (Spain), with the result of only some 18% of the trips currently made by car could be made by other modes, under the same conditions of trip time, and without affecting their characteristics. Out of these trips, 75% could be made by public transport, 15% cycling and 10% on foot. The possible mode to be transferred depends on the location: city centre areas are more favourable for walking and cycling while city skirts could attract more PT trips. Conclusions The proposed method has demonstrated its validity to determine the potential of transferring trips out of cars to more sustainable modes. Al the same time it is clear that, even in areas with favourable conditions for walking, cycling and PT trips, the potential of transfer is limited because cars fulfil more properly special requirements of some trips and tours.