**2. Approach 1: changes to consumption patterns conducive to sustainability**

Conditions of confinement de facto and abruptly change supply and demand dynamics, significantly altering household consumption patterns. To identify whether lockdowns can cause a permanent shift toward more sustainable lifestyles, we need to ask at least three questions: (1) Does confinement activate behavioral change factors that consumer science has already identified as effective behavior modifiers: (2) Are these conditions juxtaposed with areas of consumption that have environmental impacts; and, perhaps the most difficult question, (3) could the positive effects on sustainable consumption that may appear during lockdowns spill over into post-confinement, and consolidate as stable patterns. We can anticipate that the post-confinement period will be characterized by a crisis of trust and confidence in the immediate surroundings, coupled with heightened global awareness of collaboration and interdependence. Moreover, Ramiksson [3] has theorized that the

*The Future of Sustainable Consumption after the Pandemic, Optimism or Pessimism? DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.107140*

combination of pro-social and pro-environmental behaviors observed during lockdowns may have long-lasting effects on well-being, which contributes to long-term adoption.

The following consumption categories, widely used by multilateral and national policies and interventions [4], will be used for the analysis: (1) Use of water, electricity, and gas; (2) Transportation; (3) Eating habits and forms of supply; and (4) Organization of consumption needs and priorities. Meanwhile, the following five categories of social mechanisms have been identified as having an influence on promoting proenvironmental consumption [5]: Social influence, habit change, individuality, emotions and beliefs, and tangibility. Based on its definition, each of these aspects is assessed to determine whether it has been triggered by confinement and whether such triggering has affected the aforementioned categories of sustainable consumption. **Table 1** summarizes the linkage between behavioral triggers and consumption categories. For those effects that are likely to have positive impacts on sustainable consumption, we examine whether they will continue in the medium and long term or whether they will disappear once the confinement measures are fully lifted.

#### **2.1 Social influence**

This is manifested through social norms, identification with influential groups, and social desirability of behaviors [6]. Confinement to mitigate COVID-19 triggers new social dynamics and the population tends to share a lot of information about the situation and their experiences in adapting to the conditions of consumption under confinement using electronic messaging [7]. This flow of information can give rise to descriptive norms, as well as increased communication and identification among influential groups, that share something in common such as place of residence or social, work, or study groups. The sustainable consumption categories that can be subject to this social dynamic are transportation, food, and some aspects of product and service consumption reordering and prioritization. For example, members of a WhatsApp group can start using certain food suppliers and share it through their social media, creating a descriptive social norm. These changes tend to favor sustainable consumption as they are related to reduced and optimized mobility and transportation, better eating habits including new places and modalities of purchase, and a reconsideration of necessary and non-necessary consumption. Early works on


*No impact, + slight positive effect, ++ strong positive effect, and − negative effect. Source: Own elaboration.*

#### **Table 1.** *Effects of confinement as a result of triggers and sustainable consumption categories.*

content analysis of social media during the pandemic reveal that lifestyle topics were part of the communications [8].

#### **2.2 Changing habits**

Consumption habits are repetitive and routine behaviors that play a key role in sustainanble consumption [9]. Confinement discontinues habits in a significant portion of consumption spaces, including the four categories of sustainable consumption mentioned above. In some cases, confinement includes different forms of penalties and incentives associated with specific behaviors (e.g., mobility). However, the impact on sustainable consumption categories can be both positive and negative. Under lockdown, households tend to increase their resource use (e.g., longer baths, greater use of household appliances, and frequent washing of clothes with low loads and high temperatures), while they reduce their use of transportation to the bare essentials, and eating habits tend to be regulated and balanced with new products and smaller portions. Finally, the reordering of consumption priorities can shift in multiple directions; for example, the suspension of habits connected to the hyper-consumption of clothing, while sustainability criteria in recycling habits, use of plastic bags, etc., may diminish in favor of practicality and hyper-hygiene. Habit discontinuation for several weeks significantly opens the possibility of changing behaviors permanently toward whatever situational influence occurs during the interrupted period, including sustainable consumption [9]. We suggest that the consumption situations experienced during lockdown may have such an effect.

#### **2.3 Individuality**

Aspects of an individual's self-perception and identity are reflected in his or her consumption patterns [10]. Some of these aspects are self-efficacy, self-concept, self-consistency, and self-interest [5]. Confinement has mixed effects on these dimensions, which could indirectly affect sustainable consumption. On the one hand, the confined consumer's consumption range is radically restricted disrupting the connection between consumption and individuality, which is then coupled with a sense of disempowerment and lack of control, which is an antecedent of proenvironmental behaviors [11]. However, confinement also brings with it a persistent message of connection with others through the common purpose of safeguarding everyone's protection and health [3]. Thus, consumers' self-efficacy diminishes while they face greater difficulties in maintaining self-consistency. At the same time, lockdown poses a challenge to self-interest in favor of more pro-social behaviors, which may open the door to changes regarding selfless nature -concept, especially through consumption. This situation could be reflected in the emergence of more sustainable consumption patterns, especially in food and in the reordering of consumption priorities, guided by pro-social criteria and by renewed roles within the family dynamics [3]. The post-confinement choice and use of transport can become either more or less sustainable depending on the direction of the change in self-concept, the symbolic weight of this decision, and the contrast with other criteria such as safety, hygiene, and efficiency. For example, the intention to buy a vehicle may decrease if its social symbolic value has been reevaluated, but it is more convenient from a distancing and hygiene standpoint. With very little relation to self-concept and with reduced self-efficacy due to the effect of confinement, resource use would have a minor bearing.

*The Future of Sustainable Consumption after the Pandemic, Optimism or Pessimism? DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.107140*

#### **2.4 Emotions and beliefs**

Consumer behavior in general is influenced by a very complex mix of emotions, information, and beliefs. However, behaviors consistent with promoting sustainability have a distinctive feature, namely the so-called attitude-behavior gap or valueaction gap [12]. That is, although people—in many cases, well informed—report a great concern about the environment [13, 14], behaviors change to a much lesser extent. Can lockdowns exert an effect in reducing such gap? Confinement has both emotional and cognitive effects that could influence sustainable consumption in different directions. On the one hand, the worrying negative emotions experienced during the confinement period trigger emotional self-regulatory effects aimed at reducing such emotions through immediate gratification [15]. This would increase resource use and food cravings and may lead people to imagine consumption scenarios that increase their intention to travel, buy vehicles, or reorder consumption priorities during and after the crisis, considering short-term satisfaction rather than sustainability criteria. However, the increased flow of information can promote learning about climate change and sustainable development. This in turn may enhance the perception of environmental protection being a collective challenge. In any case, the emotional effects of confinement are quite significant and its negative effects on sustainable consumption possibly outweigh the positive effects of increased information.

#### **2.5 Tangibility**

A significant percentage of consumers still think of sustainable development as something abstract and distant. Even if people believe that climate change is real and that companies should do something about it (see Nielsen global report, [14]), there may not be enough urgency in such beliefs to motivate short-term individual actions. This makes sustainable consumption changes difficult to define and incorporate into frequent consumption patterns. The occurrence of a pandemic and the reality of confinement elevates the perception of a subjective probability of events that could be considered distant and improbable. It brings a temporal and physical approach to an event with global concrete implications. This affects the way climate change is temporally construed [16]. That is, the psychological distance to the global level crisis is reduced. Such tangibilization can increase the proximity and reality of climate change as a global problem with real and intrusive implications in people's lives. This can have positive consequences in all categories of sustainable consumption, especially the most proximate and controllable ones, which in this analysis are resource use and the reordering of consumption priorities. Transportation and food decisions may be less affected because they are connected to aspects slightly further away from immediate control, such as available infrastructure and food availability.

**Table 1** Summarizes the speculated crossed effects of the pandemic on behavioral change drivers and consumption category.

In short, the strongest and most generalized effect of lockdowns and restrictions on sustainable consumption through the impact on short-term consumption patterns occurs through the tangibilization of global challenges and high impact on people's lives that can result in stronger beliefs about the collective challenge of curbing climate change. Next in importance and generality is the effect of social influence on three of the sustainable consumption categories. Habit changes and ambivalent messages about individuality and collectivity have positive and negative effects

depending on the consumption category. Finally, the negative emotions engendered by confinement may decrease sustainable consumption.
