The project is funded by the Ministry for Science and Culture of Lower Saxony and the Volkswagen Founda?on (VolkswagenS?Aung) through the “Niedersächsisches Vorab” grant programme (grant number VWZN3037).
Sustainable consumption of information and communication technologies (ICT) in the digital society – dialogue and transformation through open innovation A web survey on smartphones
M. Sc. Cand. Shirin Betzler Department of cross-cultural business psychology University of Osnabrück, Germany
Why sustainable consumption of ICT is necessary
Negative impact of our digital society:
• Economic: Monopolization (google, amazon...) & destruction of economic and social systems
• Social: Technostress & loss of privacy, (working) conditions in production and disposal countries
• Ecological: great need of natural resources and electric energy, great amounts of electronic waste
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…1,8 tons of raw materials is
needed to produce a PC with a 17-inch
display
…10% of the energy
consumption in Germany is taken up by
ICT (Manhart 2012)
…95% of all queries on the internet are put with
google (Statista 2014)
…50 % of the ICT devices are
not being recycled (Step Initiative 2014)
Theoretical approaches to predict pro-environmental behavior: TPB, VBN and emotion-centered approaches
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Theory of planned behavior
(TPB, Ajzen, 1991) Pro-environmental
behavior = self-interested behavior
à Rational choice
Value-belief-norm theory (VBN, Stern, 2000) Pro-environmental
behavior = pro-social behavior
à Moral obligation
Affective approaches: Pride and guilt as self-conscious emotions
effective in the context of pro-environmental behavior
(e.g. Onwezen et al., 2014)
Hypothesized model
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ICT consump?on
Inten?on Subjec?ve norm
AQtude
Ascrip?on of responsibility Values Personal
norm
Pride + guilt
Problem awareness
Awareness of consequences
Perceived behavioral control
Value-based decisions
Rational decisions
Em
otio
n-dr
iven
de
cisi
ons
• Adaptation and backtranslation of English items from existing research
• Convenience sample (social networks, mailing lists) of N=271 students (25.5% men, 72.7% women, 0.4% other, 1.5% do not want to specify), Ø age 23.25 years
Procedure and sample of web survey
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• Focus of items: New acquisitions and recycling behavior of mobile phones, taking into account sustainability
Average useful life
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0
0,5
1
1,5
2
2,5
3
3,5
4
4,5 current mobile phone
previous mobile phone
seen as generally appropiate
3,0
3,8
...
Dur
atio
n (y
ears
)
***
1,8
Reasons for acquisition of current phone
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5,5%
7,4%
9,6%
12,5%
12,9%
26,6%
29,9%
50,2%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%
keep up with people around me
previous phone was stolen/got lost
other
latest/more recent model desired
received it with contract
new features were more attractive
old features not satisfactory (anymore)
previous phone was broken
(Multiple responses possible)
Devices which are not in use anymore
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(Multiple responses possible)
5,2
5,2
13,3
19,6
33,9
64,2
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
other
disposed in household waste
recycled
sold
given away
kept
%
Reasons for keeping devices
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(Multiple responses possible)
Number of phones not in use % N
0 38,7 105 1 31 84
2 or more 30,2 82 N=166
9,6
28,3
44,6
64,5
other
don't know what to do
did not take care of it yet
might need them again
0 20 40 60 80 %
One word on the WHAT of consumption
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82,66%
14,39% 1,11% No Fairphone Apple Nokia Samsung Google Sony Ericsson
Remaining: <1%
„Do you know of any mobile phone companies which in your eyes stand for sustainability?“
And others: Project Ara, Shiftphone, Phonebloks...
Conclusion
• Rapid increase of ICT products means many resources, much energy and e-waste
• Factors hindering people from recycling old devices: foresightful planning vs. ignorance of possibilities
• Factors hindering people from extending useful life: built-in obsolescence vs. Consumerism
Rational, value-based and emotional factors need to be targeted in order to produce change in existing consumption patterns
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Next steps
• Validate postulated model via Structural Equation Modeling (SEM)
• Cross-cultural comparison with Costa Rica
– Value-based vs. rational constructs stronger influence?
– Importance of social vs. Personal norm?
– Which value dimensions on a national level influence the relations?
• Collectivism, future/humane orientation, postmaterialism...
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Thank you for your attention!
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For more information on the eCoInnovateIT project, visit:
http://ecoinnovateit.de
or feel free to ask me!
References
Ajzen, I. (1991). The theory of planned behavior. Organizational behavior and human decision processes, 50(2), 179-211. doi:10.1016/0749-5978(91)90020-T Bamberg, S., Hunecke, M., & Blöbaum, A. (2007). Social context, personal norms and the use of public transportation: Two field studies. Journal Of Environmental Psychology, 27(3), 190-203. doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2007.04.001
Onwezen, M. C., Bartels, J., & Antonides, G. (2014). Environmentally friendly consumer choices: Cultural differences in the self-regulatory function of anticipated pride and guilt. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 40, 239-248. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvp.2014.07.003
Stern, P. C. (2000). Toward a coherent theory of environmentally significant behavior. Journal Of Social Issues, 56(3), 407-424. doi:10.1111/0022-4537.00175
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