Influencing consumers to choose environment friendly offerings: Evidence from field experiments

The objective of this article is to examine a set of ways to influence consumer behavior toward making more environmentally friendly choices. We conducted three different studies to investigate (1) what consumers think would influence their behavior, (2) how several question-based verbal influence strategies nudge consumer behavior in one direction or another, and (3) how question-based written influence strategies influence consumer behavior. The findings reveal a discrepancy between what consumers think would influence behavior and what actually does influence it. In addition, under all verbal and written experimental conditions, influence strategies led to consumer change toward environmentally friendly offerings compared with alternative non-environment friendly offerings. The discussion highlights possible explanations for the results, managerial implications, the study's limitations, and suggestions for future research, with a special emphasis on research into factors that can change consumer behavior.