مقاله انگلیسی رایگان در مورد تکنولوژی های مجازی در حمایت از مصرف پایدار – الزویر 2022

Abstract

     Virtual technologies will change the way we consume in the digital environment in the future. Such technologies can provide consumers with a multi-sensory experience in contrast to the single-sensory stimulus in the conventional online environment. As human senses play a key role in consumption choices, we argue that virtual technologies provide greater opportunities to influence consumer decisions than the present digital environment. Consequently, we suggest that virtual technologies can potentially be used to nudge consumers towards sustainable consumption. We discuss technology-assisted sensory marketing, present the cognitive and emotive aspects of virtual reality, and propose applications of virtual reality technologies to encourage sustainable consumption. Our opinion paper concludes that virtual technologies are likely to change many aspects of human life and can have significant positive effects on the environment and climate change.

Introduction

     It is nothing new that the production, processing, packaging, transport, and consumption of consumer goods require the use of natural resources and that they pollute the environment. Indeed, human consumption has a direct impact on the environment, but it is also a major force for change through consumption choices (e.g., Halder, Hansen, Kangas, & Laukkanen, 2020). The human senses play a key role in consumption choices (Biswas, 2019) and these sensations can influence decision-making unconsciously (Krishna & Schwarz, 2014). Consequently, retailers can nudge consumer decisions by altering sensory cues (Biswas et al., 2014, van Kleef et al., 2014) and have significant managerial implications (Biswas, 2019). In fact, the most pleasurable experiences in life involve the simultaneous stimulation of multiple senses (Krishna, 2012, Tynan and McKechnie, 2009). However, consumption today increasingly takes place in digital environments that are limited in providing sensory cues to consumers and in practice provide only single-sensory stimulus. Does this deficiency put our ability to influence consumer experiences and choices at risk?

Conclusions

     The most obvious opportunity for virtual technologies in terms of promoting sustainable consumption relates to lessening the need to travel from one place to another, and this applies not only to leisure travelling in virtual reality, which has become one of the trends of today, but also to other aspects of human life such as meeting with other people, working, and shopping. Once technological development is taken a bit further and VR devices become more end-user friendly, this is likely to change many aspects of human life, which can have a remarkable environmentally friendly impact and reduce the carbon footprint. Additionally, virtual technologies enable an effective way to promote sustainable consumer behavior and to illustrate the impact that our every-day consumption decisions have in real life. We hope to see such developments more in the future.