Does sustainability sell luxury products? The influence of sustainable features in luxury products on brand perceptions and product evaluations

Researcher

Anqi Yu ( CJS)

Supervisor

Verolien Cauberghe (CJS)

Co-supervisor

Shubin Yu (Norwegian Business School)

Consumers are increasingly aware of environmental issues and they include these issues into their consumption decisions on sustainable products. Their adopting sustainable consumption behavior is the key to countries’ sustainable development. Hence, the importance of promoting sustainable consumption and knowing consumers’ perceptions and attitudes towards sustainable products in time cannot be overemphasized.

Luxury consumption matters in promoting sustainable development because it has the potential to drive change in production processes, inspire consumer behavior, and set an example for other industries to follow. However, there is a perception gap between sustainable consumption and luxury consumption, as the former implies frugalness, ethics and altruism while the latter customarily delivers instant impressions of extravagance and flamboyance. Even though Luxury products possess durability attribute which overlaps with sustainable consumption, many consumers neglect this attribute, as it is not salient. It is of paramount importance to understand consumers’ perceptions and attitudes towards sustainable luxury products communicated on social media to obtain their acceptance and legitimacy.

Hence, this project adopts machine learning skills and experimental methods to study how to bridge the abovementioned perception gap.