The Future of Sustainable Consumption after the Pandemic, Optimism or Pessimism?

*Carlos A. Trujillo*

### **Abstract**

The COVID-19 pandemic caused not only a temporal disruption in consumption habits but may have also triggered permanent changes in sustainable consumption. It was observed that during lockdowns, forced changes in consumption generated both positive and negative impacts on green-house emissions (e.g., less air travel but more plastic packaging). Furthermore, the consumer had to adjust their consumption decisions according to external circumstances in an unprecedented way. How much sustainable consumption will change in the long run? This chapter approaches that question from two possible angles based on consumer behavior theory. 1) We argue that changes in sustainable consumption may occur in both positive and negative directions depending on the way the disruption acted upon the interaction of drivers of behavioral change (social influence, habit discontinuation, individuality, emotions/beliefs, and tangibility) with consumption categories. 2) We argue that the influence of the disruption on sustainable consumption may accelerate the transition toward a post-consumerist society. We examine the potential validity of our propositions by reviewing empirical studies that captured sustainable consumption during the pandemic. The still scarce data indicate that in spite of both positive and negative short-term effects on sustainable consumption, there are reasons for optimism in accordance with our theories.

**Keywords:** sustainable consumption, COVID-19, habit disruption, post-consumerism, behavioral change

### **1. Introduction**

Hundreds of millions of people around the world were confined to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Following a few weeks of severe quarantines and lockdowns, many months of extended consumption restrictions remain in places around the world. This resulted in the largest natural consumption pattern modification experiment in history. The effects of lockdowns on the overall economic dynamics can be large and manifold, and the question to focus on is whether such measures could boost sustainable consumption permanently. Sustainable consumption is broadly defined as the consumption that "simultaneously optimizes the environmental, social, and economic consequences of acquisition, use, and disposition in order to

meet the needs of both current and future generations" [1]. Hence, it spans three dimensions, namely, sustainable development, consumption stages, and intergenerational considerations. The pandemic may influence the three: altering the balance and priorities of the social, environmental, and economic aspects of sustainable development, interrupting consumption stages, and refocusing the temporal considerations of consumers.

We posit that the issue of how the pandemic may influence sustainable consumption, in the long run, can be addressed based on at least two different approaches. The first is related to the short-term shock effect on people's decisionmaking brought about by the economic situation, leading to decision-making patterns, some of which are favorable toward sustainable consumption. Among such new patterns, some can be maintained in the long term. The second approach is the moderating effect of confinement as an accelerator of change in already emerging consumption patterns (e.g., voluntary simplification, collaborative consumption) toward a post-consumerist economy, brought about by boosting social and entrepreneurial innovation in keeping with sustainable development. In this chapter, we use consumer behavior theory to suggest plausible scenarios of post-pandemic sustainable consumption. In spite of the still high uncertainty regarding the actual changes in sustainable consumption after the pandemic, there is solid theory and knowledge to anticipate possible scenarios in order to inform both academic and practice-oriented readers. This is the objective of this chapter. The topics touched upon in this chapter are widely researched, but our purpose is not to undertake a full review, but instead, based on the most salient literature, we offer a framework to analyze the potential long-term effect of the pandemic on sustainable consumption. Hence, this chapter offers informed suggestions about potential scenarios. We complement such analysis using the still scarce empirical evidence available in recent publications. Such evidence, nonetheless, is mostly related to consumption during the lockdown, not after the pandemic. There are, nonetheless, industry reports that show post-pandemic significant changes in consumption patterns and rationales that may indicate good news for sustainability [2]. We discuss comparative data from a consumption survey conducted in Colombia right before the lockdown period (December 2019) and repeated when most of the major restrictions had been lifted (October 2020).
