Will Consumer Buying Behaviour Really Be Influenced by Digital Product Passports? How?

In recent blog posts we've touched on to which extent we can expect consumer behaviour to be impacted by the introduction of Digital Product Passports (DPP), beginning by the end of 2027.

A fundamental premise behind introducing Digital Product Passports is that the choices made by better informed, responsible consumers will make producers change designs and production methods in ways that reduce negative impact on our environment.

Consumers don't walk their talk of responsible consumption

But, as Johan Anselmsson, Professor in Marketing and Branding at Lund University School of Economics & Management, tells us: consumers may talk about intending to reduce consumption and shift to products with lesser negative impact on the environment, but don't follow it up in actual actions.

Therefore, we wanted to dive deeper into this discussion.

Research on consumer purchasing behaviours reveals slowing, even reduced, sales of ecological produce for example, especially when the economy slows down and consumers need to tighten their budgets, Johan Anselmsson says. When budgets shrink, ecological products – which tend to be more expensive – are among the first to take a hit.

But, second-hand is booming in many countries, some may object. Sure, that's correct, but as second hand is also less expensive, it is highly probable that this trend is rather due to the lower cost than lower environmental impact.

During the price hike of energy the winter of 2022/23, some consumers even thought less about responsible consumption of goods as their reduced use of energy made such a positive contribution to carbon dioxide emissions! As if they had reached "their quota" of taking responsibility for the environment through consuming less fossil energy.

As we stated in Increase the Incentive For Consumers to Pay Attention to DPP's on 23 October, consumers buying behaviour is more influenced by matters of health and safety than by environmental consequences, according to Johan Anselmsson.

Environmental blame game?

Our discussion with Johan Anselmsson moves on to if the risk of having to run the gauntlet because of your environmental impact is a factor to be reckoned with?

In environmental discussions we often come across arguments like my/our environmental impact is so small. The key is how "the big guys behave". An argument often heard from politicians in small countries, trying to shift responsible from their voters to bigger players, bigger and more populous countries.

That way of reasoning can of course be used by individual consumers as well. My impact on the environment as an individual consumer is so minor that my consumption habits don't really matter. It's boils down to a matter of personal conscience and convictions.

Objectively, the risk of individual consumers suddenly being in the center of a media storm due to their environmental record is pretty slim. For corporations and public authorities the risk is significant, though. There's no shortage of examples.

We agree that this means that we might see corporations and public authorities leveraging the transparency on environmental impact from DPP's to mitigate risks of getting caught in such media storms. More so, and more consistently than consumers, actually.

In this context it is interesting to note that another measure in the EU regulatory package where we find DPP – ESPR; Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation – is EU Green Public Procurement. An initiative for the EU to use its' purchasing power by implementing tighter environmental criteria in their procurement.

Will the Retail Trade Play a Key Role?

If consumers are less likely to scan DPP's to reduce the environmental impact of their consumption habits, how will the retail trade behave? They might not be as likely to be hit by a media storm, but more so than any individual consumer. Additionally, their livelihood depends on consumers choosing to shop at their stores.

Therefore, it's not at all unlikely that they will play a key, active, role in using Digital Product Passports to vet the range of products they offer to purge the worst "environmental offenders", to mitigate the risk of negative publicity and customer sentiment. Trust us with you shopping and your environmental conscience.

Don't be surprised to see retailers do the "DPP vetting" so consumers won't have to.

Conclusion: more a matter of avoiding to be at the bottom of the list than competing for first place

Our discussion with Johan Anselmsson therefore ends in a general conclusion that the effect of the European Union introducing Digital Product Passports probably rather will be a matter of weeding out products with the worst environmental performance than a race for the top spot - and that consumers actually will play a smaller part in doing that weeding out process.

Thinking of the intentions behind the ESPR and DPP regulation, that might not be too bad a result even if not exactly the stated goal.

Yellow. White. But which one is the "greenest"??

Image by Antonio_Diaz on iStock