Consumer resistance to sustainability interventions emerges because consumers are required to change their broader social practices (through sensemaking, accommodating and stabilizing) rather than individual behaviours, and face challenges (responsibilization battles, unsettling emotionality, and the un/linking of other practices) in achieving that task. We provide recommendations for marketers and policy makers for 1) how to design practice-based interventions to reduce consumer resistance at the outset, and 2) how to monitor and adjust the intervention once it has been implemented.

1. "How Do I Carry All This
Now?"
Understanding Consumer Resistance to
Sustainability Interventions
From: Gonzalez-Arcos et al. 2021
The battle is not just being fought over the fate of a familiar modern convenience but over,
for one side, our last vestiges of freedom and, for the other, the future of planet Earth. And
fluttering above this battlefield like the tattered banner of a besieged army, amid a haze of
misinformation, counterarguments, and money, money, money, you’ll find a single, flimsy,
humble plastic bag. —Sternbergh (2015)

2. From: Gonzalez-Arcos et al. 2021
The Problem
• Interventions that aim to encourage people
to be more sustainable increasingly cause
consumer resistance (i.e., refusals by
consumers to accept or support the
sustainability intervention) even when
people want to behave more sustainably.
• Our research asked…
• (1) What gives rise to consumer
resistance to sustainability
interventions?
• (2) How can consumer resistance be
reduced to make such interventions
more effective?

3. Problem: Marketers and social planners often
assume that we can target and change just an
individual consumer’s behavior. However, doing so
often generates consumer resistance and
undermines the interventions.
Our Insight: The interventions require consumers
to re-configure their consumption practices.
Therefore, we need to understand not just the
individual behaviors, but also the social
practices they are a part of.
Social Practice Theory: Behavior is not primarily
determined by the individual, but by
interconnected social practices.
From: Gonzalez-Arcos et al. 2021
Social Practice Theory
Social practices, like shopping, are sets of
3 elements: materials people use (e.g.,
shopping carts, bags), skills people have
(e.g., efficiently loading bags in to their
car), and meanings people attribute to the
practice (e.g., convenience, pleasure).

4. From: Gonzalez-Arcos et al. 2021
Changing the social practice of shopping
after the ban, required consumers to…
1. Make sense of the change: understand
the changing shopping practice
2. Accommodate the change: develop
new competencies for using the new
materials involved
3. Stabilize the changed practice:
perform the changed practice often and
efficiently
Practice
Reconfiguration

5. Challenges and
Resistance
Challenges included…
1. Battles around who should be responsible or
carry the weight of the intervention
2. Consumers no longer feeling completely “at
home” with the shopping practices which were
previously familiar to them
3. Changing other linked practices that then require
consumers to change their routines
These challenges distracted consumers from the
sustainability goal of the intervention, delaying the
required social buy-in and caused them to resist the
ban discouraging consumers from supporting the
ban.
From: Gonzalez-Arcos et al. 2021

6. Designing Practice-Based Interventions
1. Identify practice elements that are likely to be disrupted
Make sure that consumers have access to new materials (e.g., canvas bags), make meanings specific and non-
patronizing (e.g., “reusing helps”), and make it easy to learn new competencies (e.g., reusable bags with visual
indicators of load capacity).
2. Establish responsibility for the change among carriers
Identify who is going to have to be responsible for the change (e.g., consumers, retailers, manufacturers). Where
possible, try to disperse responsibility so all carriers have a role.
3. Determine potential related emotions
Offer resources (e.g., gamified information, guidance) to reduce frustration and anger. Encourage sharing of ideal
emotions (e.g., accomplishment testimonials, badges).
4. Identify links to other social practices
Create and communicate clear boundaries to emphasize scope (e.g., bag ban in 2020, packaging ban in 2022).
From: Gonzalez-Arcos et al. 2021

7. Monitoring and Adjusting Interventions
Once the practice-based intervention has been implemented, these should be
monitored and adjusted if those impacted show signs of resistance.
1. Refocus sensemaking
Reiterate responsibilities and benefits (e.g., retailers should provide boxes or other materials).
2. Encourage accommodation
Assist with new materials (e.g., fact sheet for shopping without bags).
3. Accelerate stabilization
Support consumers by facilitating mastery (e.g., games, catalogs, testimonials in store with advice).
From: Gonzalez-Arcos et al. 2021