Communicating the environmental risk of product returns

Zhang, Danni, Dawson, Ian and Frei, Regina (2023) Communicating the environmental risk of product returns. The 31th Annual Conference for the Society of Risk Analysis - Europe: Risk and Assessment in a Changing World, Lund University , Lund, Sweden. 19 - 21 Jun 2023. p. 42 .

Abstract

Product returns consume substantial resources and inflict sizeable environmentally harmful emissions. They require additional transportation and packaging, and many returned items, especially apparel products, are often discarded because their conditions or operational/financial constraints thwart resale. Returns that end up in landfills not only waste materials but also release greenhouse gases as they decompose. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, customers' growing demand for 'effortless' returns processes has led to increased waste and environmental damage. While studies suggest that messages about environmental impacts could elicit responsible behaviours and moral emotions have strong impacts on environmental behaviour, we still lack empirical investigations in communicating the environmental impacts of product returns.

To address this knowledge gap, we conducted an experimental study in which 291 UK participants were presented with environmental risk information on product returns using one of the three presentation formats (i.e., positive message with an image, negative message with an image, and neutral message with text only). It measured participants' (1) multiple-size order and returns decisions, (2) moral emotions of guilt and pride, and (3) pro-environmental behavioural intention in the future. Contrary to expectations, the results revealed that there is no statistically significant difference between formats regarding customers' intention of reconsidering their multiple-size orders to reduce returns-induced environmental risk. Furthermore, participants felt more guilty about their returns' environmental damage and would like to shop more responsibly when the information was displayed in a negative format. Importantly, the answers of open-ended questions show that participants (1) believed that they had not been informed about how returns caused environmental risk and were unaware that returned products cannot always be resold, and (2) considered that individual returns would be too insignificant to cause great environmental damage. Our findings contribute to the existing research avenues of climate change communication, environmental damage prevention, and the influence of moral emotions on individuals' environmental attitudes. Collectively, the findings of this study demonstrate an urgent need for further risk communication research to develop more sophisticated environmental messages regarding product returns, which in turn would encourage customers to shop and return more responsibly.

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Contributors

Author: Danni Zhang

Author: Ian Dawson

Author: Regina Frei

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