Consumers’ Attitude towards Sustainability in Italy: Process of Validation of a Duly Designed Questionnaire (original) (raw)

Consumers’ Attitude towards the Sustainability of Different Food Categories

Foods, 2020

Currently, poverty, climate change, environmental pollution and the depletion of natural resources have generated a greater concern for sustainability. The objective is the survival of the human species and the persistence of all components of the biosphere. To achieve sustainability, human participation is essential; sustainable consumption depends on consumers’ perceptions of sustainability and how they affect their behavior. The aim of this study was to understand consumers’ perceptions and attitudes towards food sustainability based on country, age, gender, income and education level. An online survey was carried out in countries in Europe, America and Asia. Consumers were asked questions organized into food categories. The results showed that consumers’ attitude towards sustainability is understood differently in each country, even within the same food category. Consumers with lower education level showed the lowest knowledge and concern about food sustainability. Older generat...

Typical Products Sustainability in Southern Italy: Exploring Apulian Consumer Perception

Proceedings of the 2nd International Forum on Agri-Food Logistics “Logistics Facing Challenges of Food Security and Environmental Protection”; 21-23 June, 2017; Poznan, Poland. Poznan University of Life Sciences. pp. 32-36, 2017

The present paper focuses on consumers’ perception of the sustainability of typical agro-food products in Apulia region. An exploratory survey was conducted among Apulian consumers to collect information on their attitude towards the typical products of the region. The survey aimed to contribute to the identification of the main criteria that drive the food purchasing and consumption decisions, deepening in this context the issue of consumer perception towards typical and traditional Apulian products.

Sustainability for Food Consumers: Which Perception?

Sustainability

A sustainable future for the community is one of the objectives established by the European Union Agenda 2030. Furthermore, sustainable consumption has been identified as one of the possible trajectories for sustainable development. It is for this reason that food production, distribution and consumption ways cannot be overlooked for sustainability achievement, as well as the consumer’s related perception. In this research the Best–Worst scaling methodology was adopted to explore the priorities declared by a sample of 801 consumers among 12 different sustainability definitions selected from the scientific literature. The choice experiment was carried out through face-to-face interviews during two food and wine events closely related to the sustainability theme in the food sector. The respondents considered as sustainability priority definition the “preservation of natural resources”, followed by “decent working conditions” and “accessibility for everyone to healthy and safe food”. M...

Healthy and Sustainable Food: A Cross-Cultural Study among Spanish and Italian Consumers

Foods

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the perception of environmental attributes and food safety in Italy and Spain and how these different perceptions influence the importance of various attributes and certifications related to food. These two countries have a common root and some undeniable similarities, but there are two completely distinct individualities. Three main research questions have, thus, been identified: attention to food safety regarding Italian and Spanish consumers; the role of ecological certifications in the perception of health in the two countries; the role of the brand and the choice of organic products in the perception of food safety. To answer the research questions, a questionnaire was administered, face to face, to a sample of both Spanish consumers and Italian consumers. The analysis of the data collected through the questionnaires was administered using two logistic regressions to identify which variables influence issues concerning the health and safe...

Analyzing Attitudes to Promote Sustainability: The Adaptation of the Environmental Concern Scale (ECs) to the Italian Context

Sustainability

The aim of this study was to examine the psychometric properties of the Environmental Concern scale (ECs) in the Italian context. Three studies were conducted. In Study 1, we carried out an exploratory factor analysis and a 2-factor solution-biospheric concern and egoistic concern—was confirmed. In Study 2, we tested the structure of the eight-items version of the ECs, using confirmatory factor analysis. The 2-factor structure was the best factorial solution. In this study we correlated the dimensions of ECs with life satisfaction and climate change worry. As expected, biospheric concern was significantly related to climate change worry, and egoistic concern was significantly related to life satisfaction. In Study 3, we tested the gender invariance. The ECs structure was the same for men and women. These studies demonstrate that the ECs possess good construct validity, factor structure, and invariance between genders. The measure can be used in the Italian context for future research.

Sustainability Perception of Italian Consumers: Is it Possible to Replace Meat, and What Is the Best Alternative?

Nutrients

Growing worldwide food demand with its environmental impacts requires a reshaping of food consumption. This study aims to evaluate the degree of Italian consumers’ awareness of sustainability and whether protein alternatives to meat could be accepted. A cross-sectional survey was carried out on a group of 815 respondents, representative of the Italian adult population for geography, gender, and age, using multivariate analysis together with cluster analysis. Lack of awareness of the consequences of food choices on the environment was found in 45% of respondents, and 51% reduced their consumption of meat. Typical foods of the Mediterranean diet (84% legumes 82% eggs, and 77% fish) were selected as the preferred sources of protein to replace meat, while insects and insect-based products were less accepted (67%). The importance of meat is the latent factor that explains more than 50% of the common variance observed in the factor analysis. The cluster analysis confirmed the importance o...

Sustainability seen from the perspective of consumers

International Journal of Consumer Studies, 2011

An important step in promoting sustainable consumption is to find out how consumers understand the concept of sustainability. In this paper, we report on a study among Norwegian consumers in which we explored their understanding of sustainability at two levels. First, we investigated consumers' understanding of the general sustainability concept; specifically, we studied how important the following five sustainability dimensions are in consumers' conception of sustainability: the environmental, social, economic, temporal and the developmental dimension. Second, we investigated how consumers' understanding of sustainability manifests itself in consumption decisions: We studied consumers' opinions about how important various attributes are for sustainable products and which product labels they consider indicative of sustainable products. We found that all five sustainability dimensions occurred as elements of consumers' understanding of the sustainability concept. The environmental dimension, the social dimension and the developmental dimension were particularly outstanding. With regard to attributes that are important for sustainable products, consumers placed high emphasis on recyclability of the packaging, fair payment of producers, low energy use and low carbon dioxide emissions during production and shipping. Humane animal treatment was also considered an important attribute of sustainable products. The product labels that were considered most indicative of sustainable products were the Nordic Swan and the Norwegian Debio label. Consumers' judgments of how indicative the labels are of sustainable products were related positively to familiarity with the labels.