Deadlines:

20 October 2021 Abstract
22 March 2022 Manuscript

Topic Editors: Myriam Ertz, Leila ELGAAIED-GAMBIER, Joachim H. Spangenberg

About this Research Topic

The sustainable transition entails important challenges, particularly at the consumption level. It is more important than ever to reform consumption patterns in order to achieve sustainable development. Technology might play a fundamental role in this regard but extant research fails to deliver proper insights into crucial issues. First, technology has been mainly investigated in relation to its capacity to spur sustainability at the production and distribution level, through (a) digital tools (e.g., smartphone apps that help consumers keep track of their energy or water consumption), (b) green technology products (e.g., solar panels, electric vehicles, automatic kitchen composter), or (c) industrial ecology (e.g., cleaner production processes and green innovations implemented by manufacturers and promoted to consumers). As such, it mostly offered improvements on a technological path not necessarily considering itself as problem solver for sustainable consumption solutions to meet human needs.

Second, technology is often viewed as a positive impactor on sustainability. But technology also entails environmental challenges such as exponential increase in the exchange of data and associated energy consumption, or the production and recycling of electronic devices, to name but a few.

Third, sustainable satisfiers (i.e., sustainable products, services and practices that meet specific human needs) have grown in importance, but they still tend to appeal predominantly to specific niche markets or are chosen if other criteria are met, such as utilitarian aspects of low prices or convenience, but also more hedonic ones including social norm, or prestige.

This Research Topic thus is looking forward to contributions which help to close such research gaps and provide insights to at least one of the following aspects:
1) Which means are required to meet human needs, and which of these are technological?
2) How sustainable are the satisfiers suggested, and how to identify the most sustainable ones?
3) How can technology be used to motivate (nudge) consumers into making increased use of sustainable satisfiers and switch to more sustainable social practices?

They aim at investigating the role of technology for sustainability throughout the consumption chain of pre-purchase, purchase, consumption/use, disposal. Research on and from both developed and developing nations are of equal interest and relevance. They invite manuscripts to examine sociological and psychological perspectives to define the technology demand. The contributing authors should have in mind the distinction between human needs and their – technical and non-technical – satisfiers. How such demands can be realized in the technology development system, and how their diffusion can be accelerated, are issues for analytical papers, but also for fact-based essays and vision descriptions embedding technologies in future social processes and structures. Both empirical and conceptual studies are welcomed in this collection.

Keywords: Sustainable consumption, technology, eco-feedback technologies, persuasive sustainability systems, green platform economy, sharing economy, collaborative consumption, gamification-based sustainability, needs and satisfiers, technology demand, demand drive

More information can be found at the journal’s website.