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Sustainable Development and Practices: Production, Consumption and Prosumption

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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 August 2021) | Viewed by 26466

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Dr. Osmud Rahman

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Guest Editor

Fashion at the School of Creative Industry, Toronto Metropolitan University, Toronto, ON, Canada
Interests: consumer behavior; fashion consumption; culture and identity; body image; cross-cultural study; subculture; aging consumers; eye-tracking research; sustainability; marketing
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The term “sustainability” has been used interchangeably with sustainable development, ecological/green system, and triple bottom line. The concept of sustainability can be described as maximizing the positive impact and minimizing the negative impact of environmental, social, ethical, and economic effects. In recent years, a substantial amount of research has focused on “sustainable production and consumption.” The motives of developing and promoting sustainable practices are not limited to enhancing profitable growth, but also extend to raising sustainability concerns and public awareness. As many prior studies have primarily focused on environmental issues, it is imperative to advance our knowledge in sustainable practices through collaboration, investigation, reflection, and a diversity of academic lenses that intertwines social, cultural, ethical, environmental, financial, and psychological aspects. Sociocultural and ethical consumption issues have received relatively less attention in consumer behavior, marketing, and environmental literature, particularly through a multifaceted and interdisciplinary approach. Research questions of inquiry may include the following: how can sustainable practices enhance business performance, improve productivity/technologies, and benefit societal well-being? What is the relationship between sustainable attributes, product typologies, and consumer characteristics? The aims of this Special Issue seek (1) to provide practical, conceptual, and/or theoretical insights into the field of sustainability through different lenses—social, cultural, ethical, environmental, psychological, etc.; (2) to gain a deeper understanding of sustainable practices from different perspectives—producers’, consumers’, and prosumers’; and (3) to expand and challenge the frontier of sustainability research by generating new knowledge, sharing innovative ideas, and identifying a new direction for future research.

This Special Issue focuses on fusing new developments and research in sustainability. Submissions should explicitly speak to one or more of the following themes:

Sustainability development in emerging and transition economies;
Cross-national research of sustainable practices;
Opportunities and challenges in sustainable business;
Sustainability policy, regulation, and governance;
Green production methods and technologies;
Social and ethical manufacturing;
Closed-loop supply chain management;
Recycling: up-cycling or down-cycling?
Culture and sustainable consumption;
Consumer behavior and circular economy;
Fast fashion/food versus slow fashion/food consumption;
Sustainable lifestyles and practices;
Sustainability and millennials’ consumption practices;
Sustainability and aging population;
Other topics related to sustainable production, consumption, and prosumption.

Prof. Osmud Rahman
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

sustainability
sustainable practices
production
consumption
Presumption
consumer behavior
sustainable lifestyle
fast/slow consumption
social/ethical manufacturing
circular economy

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

28 pages, 15823 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Becoming a Traditional Village: Heritage Protection and Livelihood Transformation of a Chinese Village

by Rui Jun Qin and Ho Hon Leung

Sustainability 2021, 13(4), 2331; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su13042331 - 21 Feb 2021

Cited by 23 | Viewed by 5281

Abstract

This paper seeks to explore the sustainable development of contemporary Chinese villages by taking Nalu Village in China as a case study. Ethnographic in-depth interviews and observations are used to investigate the transformation of the rich history and heritage in the village. The research and analyses are informed by a multi-dimensional framework of sustainable development. The research finds that the state’s naming the village as a “Chinese Traditional Village” has promoted local rural tourism, which plays an important role in improving the visibility of the village, increases the income of the villagers, and enhances a stronger sense of attachment and satisfaction of the villagers. The pride of the villagers in turn makes them cherish the history of their village. This paper argues that this pride becomes the capital or incentive for the villagers to sustain its continuity. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Development and Practices: Production, Consumption and Prosumption)

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16 pages, 557 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Relative Importance of Values, Social Norms, and Enjoyment-Based Motivation in Explaining Pro-Environmental Product Purchasing Behavior in Apparel Domain

by Insook Ahn, Soo Hyun Kim and Munyoung Kim

Sustainability 2020, 12(17), 6797; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su12176797 - 21 Aug 2020

Cited by 15 | Viewed by 4672

Abstract

Changing consumption behavior can offer co-benefits in reduction of environmental issues and encouraging improvements to environmentally friendly or sustainable production. We propose a novel value-social norm-enjoyment-based motivation (VSE) model and test the factors that influence individual pro-environmental apparel purchasing behavior. Data were obtained from 353 college students in Korea and analyzed by using SEM. Our results show that individuals who endorse bio-altruistic values who engage in eco-friendly environmental behavior in apparel domain are influenced by descriptive norms and injunctive norms. Further, enjoyment-based motivation was found to be a key mediator among bio-altruistic value, descriptive norms, and injunctive norms on pro-environmental purchasing behavior. However, injunctive norms do not directly influence purchasing behavior, but rather, are integrated to enjoyment-based intrinsic motivation, then indirectly affect purchasing behavior. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Development and Practices: Production, Consumption and Prosumption)

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23 pages, 422 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Young Chinese Consumers’ Choice between Product-Related and Sustainable Cues—The Effects of Gender Differences and Consumer Innovativeness

by Osmud Rahman, Benjamin C.M. Fung and Zhimin Chen

Sustainability 2020, 12(9), 3818; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su12093818 - 07 May 2020

Cited by 27 | Viewed by 7607

Abstract

Sustainability has received widespread attention in both academia and industry, but there is still a paucity of research investigating the relationships between gender, consumer innovativeness, and clothing, as well as how they may influence sustainable practices. The overarching objective of this study is to investigate clothing expenditure, product cues (intrinsic, extrinsic and sustainable), gender (men and women) and consumer innovativeness (fashion innovators and non-innovators) in China, in order to find out how these factors may influence consumers’ choices. To address the research objective, 10 intrinsic cues, three extrinsic cues, and seven sustainable cues were used to investigate apparel consumers’ choices and preferences. A self-administered online survey consisted of eight items on sustainable commitment and behaviour, six items of fashion innovativeness adapted from the Domain-Specific Innovativeness scale, 20 items concerning product cues, and numerous demographic and behaviour-related questions. In total, 1819 usable data were collected in China, including 614 males and 1196 females. The results revealed that four out of eleven hypotheses were supported, another four were partially supported, while the remainders were not. For example, both female consumers and fashion innovators relied more on style and colour to evaluate an apparel product than fashion non-innovators and male consumers. However, men tended to rely more on the brand name and country of origin to guide their product selection and purchases than women. In terms of the influence of sustainable cues, Chinese consumers are more concerned about the social/ethical cues than environmental cues. Interestingly, women were more concerned about “no animal skin use” in evaluating apparel products than men. All in all, the results of this study can provide valuable information and meaningful insight for fashion designers, product developers, and marketers to develop effective communication strategies to guide potential customers in understanding a plethora of apparel values, including functionality, aesthetics, finances, altruism, and sustainability. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Development and Practices: Production, Consumption and Prosumption)

17 pages, 1353 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Pricing Decisions for a Sustainable Supply Chain in the Presence of Potential Strategic Customers

by Xinmin Liu, Kangkang Lin, Lei Wang and Lili Ding

Sustainability 2020, 12(4), 1655; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su12041655 - 22 Feb 2020

Cited by 14 | Viewed by 7618

Abstract

In service to sustainable development, consumers have begun to prefer green products for their special environmental characteristics, and many enterprises are introducing new products to improve their competitiveness, but this tactic may not work if customers are strategic, as they might choose to defer purchasing decisions while prices are high and wait for lower prices in the future. Considering the differences in purchase behavior, we divided customers into two groups—strategic customers and myopic customers. Furthermore, we distinguished three types of strategic customers according to their different preferences to analyze the optimal pricing and greenness strategies in sustainable supply chain in strategic customer scenarios. Our results led to the following conclusions. (1) Strategic customers’ individual preferences can affect optimum equilibrium and that a higher purchase price threshold can stimulate the manufacturer to improve greenness and set a higher price, while a higher greenness purchase threshold and purchase value threshold will force manufacturer to set a lower price. (2) We observed that strategic customers can increase demand and vender profit. As the number of strategic customers increases, selling price and greenness will experience downward trends in a price threshold scenario but upward trends in greenness threshold and value threshold scenarios. (3) A firm can take measures to mitigate the effects of strategic customers by adjusting price and greenness dynamically according to price and greenness sensitivity, which can play a leading role in actively influencing strategic customer behavior. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Development and Practices: Production, Consumption and Prosumption)

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