The Role of Marketing and Business-to-Consumer Nudging in Fostering Sustainable Consumption

Assuming consumers have a degree of agency toward systemic issues like climate change, this essay explores the role of marketing and business-to-consumer nudging (B2C nudging) in fostering sustainable consumption. Despite its reputation as part of the cause rather than potential solution to the problem, marketing tools can help overcome behavioral and sociocultural barriers typically preventing responsible choices. Whereas nudges leverage consumers’ cognitive biases to design tailored choice architectures that target specific «behavioral types», their effectiveness is context-dependent and limited in the long term. However, creating responsible consumption patterns requires rather deep transformations in consumer culture: the ensemble of habits, attitudes, and narratives that ultimately affect consumer choice over time.