**3. Approach 2: accelerated replacement of the economic growth model based on hyper-consumption**

The literature on sustainable consumption has identified signs of an evolution toward a post-consumerist society and a new economic model [17]. The paradigm of economic growth based on the promotion of fast-paced consumption, with great prominence on planned and perceived obsolescence, shows signs of weakness in North American and Western European economies. These weaknesses have been slowly growing but have led many industries to support their growth in emerging markets. Can global confinement accelerate the transition to post-consumerism and deepen the weaknesses of the hyper-consumerist model? According to Cohen's [17] review, such weaknesses include the following:

a.The demographic transition of major developed economies to older populations.


Confinement can accelerate the weaknesses described in b, c, and f. First, confinement and social distance negatively impact employment, income, and firm performance of the middle classes. This deepens inequalities and accentuates income bimodality. Sustainable consumption in these circumstances can be affected in opposite directions. On the one hand, families may reduce their total consumption volumes, but reorient their spending toward the satisfaction of more basic and immediate needs with little consideration of sustainability attributes and with greater sensitivity to price. Such a reduction in the perception of well-being does not favor the consolidation of sustainable consumption patterns, as it reduces consumers' willingness to pay for certified products and may result in a rebound effect when economic conditions recover. With respect to c, the drastic reduction of many consumption

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

spaces during the confinement and in the following months may accelerate the reconsideration of traditional symbols of consumption-based well-being and increase the search for experiences and services through technology and virtuality. If the consumer finds satisfaction and well-being in these new experiences, they will quickly share this on social media platforms and the great symbols of middle-class suburban life will weaken at an accelerated rate, favoring the search for sustainability through consumption.

Finally, regarding f, confinement interacts with emerging social innovations engendering greater collaboration among consumers. The quarantine has made local products visible and highlighted the importance of loyalty to reliable and local brands. This can deepen social and entrepreneurial innovation in favor of consumption and reuse communities; artisanal businesses; and, in the midst of this, the value of environmental care. In recent years collaborative consumption and voluntary simplicity have gained popularity and have triggered multiple entrepreneurial initiatives in many countries. They may play an accelerating role in the effect of lockdowns on new social dynamics. Voluntary simplicity is the free decision to reduce consumption and live a simpler life (see Rebouças and Soares [18] for a recent review of the concept), which is usually motivated by environmental concern, among other factors. Collaborative consumption [19] is based on facilitating access and sharing mostly services but also products among consumers. Moreover, forced teleworking and the combination of work and family life can open the door to completely new dynamics where companies take the risk of revising work models by permanently reducing the need for transportation for thousands of workers, especially office workers. It will also favor the rise of e-learning and the value of being at home. There will, however, be a hyper-hygienic social dynamic that will lead to an avoidance of mass transit, which may encourage individual and less sustainable forms of transportation.

### **4. Preliminary empirical evidence**

During the severe lockdown weeks and the following months when various types of consumption restrictions remained, research in different contexts examined consumption patterns. A subset of such research has focused on sustainable consumption. One of the largest studies was conducted in Isreal during the confinement period by Tchetchik, Kaplan, and Blass [20]. They found significant increases in recycling and a remarkable intention to consume less. These behavioral changes were catalyzed by the perception of threats and coping mechanisms. Furthermore, ecocentric beliefs and informational associations between COVID-19 and climate change increased how serious the environmental crisis was perceived. This is consistent with the expected effects of increased tangibility explained before. In addition, food consumption patterns seem to be one of the most affected categories in different countries. Under lockdown, people significantly modified eating and cooking habits [21, 22], which may reduce food waste, as some its determinants are affected (e.g., planning meals). Consistently with our theorizing about the link between tangibility, beliefs, and more sustainable food consumption, Castellini et al. [23] found that in Italy, people exhibited increased awareness of environmental issues related to food (e.g., animal welfare) and sustainable diets. In other categories, there is still a dearth of academic research, but industry surveys [24] show some tendencies. For instance, consumers in Europe report to have increased their intention to use sustainability criteria in connection to lifestyles in general, and to recycling, sustainable packaging, and clothing

in particular, which supports our propositions about the effect of habit discontinuation on the reordering of consumption priorities.

The various studies mentioned above, show cross-sectional evidence of consumption patterns during the lockdown weeks. The question of how such patterns would unfold after the lockdown remains largely unanswered. Trujillo et al. [25] report comparative data on various sustainable consumption categories measured by the same questionnaire in Colombia, a few weeks before confinement (Decembre 2019) and right after the major restrictions had been lifted (October 2020). They found significant improvements in recycling/disposing but less sustainable consumption in water and energy use, as well as in sustainability criteria in purchases. However, they found an increase in ecocentric beliefs and a shift in the way such beliefs relate to sustainable consumption. These results may reflect some still short-term effects of lockdowns (e.g., longer showers and extremely hot laundry based on fear of contagion), but long-term belief changes toward sustainable behaviors. These findings are consistent with the proposed negative effects of emotion regulation and impulsive coping that may characterize the initial post-pandemic period, but also shows that structural beliefs may increase sustainable consumption in the long term. Furthermore, increased ecocentrism may accelerate the transition to a post-consumerist society by enabling the appearance of new innovations in the sense put forward by Cohen [17] as explained above.
