Enjoyment can make consumers more willing to pay for sustainable products. But in a University of Eastern Finland study involving a wood-based T-shirt, practical concerns weakened the connection between shoppers’ sustainability values and their willingness to buy, while enjoyment provided no statistically significant boost.
Researchers at the University of Eastern Finland examined consumers’ responses to sustainable products, including a wood-based T-shirt, a bioplastic bottle and biofuel. Their findings, published in “Forest Policy and Economics” in October, suggest that enjoyment can strengthen willingness to pay more, while an emphasis on practical benefits can weaken that relationship.
“Consumers who value sustainable consumption are more willing to pay a premium, particularly when a product offers positive emotional and user experiences,” said Jyri Hoffrén, doctoral researcher at the University of Eastern Finland. “Enjoyment helps translate sustainability values into actual consumption behavior.”
Across three studies, researchers distinguished between hedonic attitudes, associated with enjoyment and pleasure, and utilitarian attitudes, which emphasize functionality and practical benefits.
The effects varied by product. For the wood-based T-shirt, stronger sustainability values were associated with greater stated willingness to buy, but enjoyment did not significantly strengthen that relationship. An emphasis on practical benefits, meanwhile, weakened the relationship between sustainability values and purchasing intentions.
Enjoyment had a statistically significant positive effect in the analysis of the wood-based bioplastic bottle. Biofuel showed the strongest negative interaction between practical attitudes and sustainability values.
The results offer another explanation for the sustainability value-behavior gap, the disconnect between consumers’ environmental priorities and their purchasing decisions.
“This finding helps explain the value-behavior gap,” Hoffrén said. “Consumers may consider sustainability important but decide not to buy a product if its price, practicality or perceived benefits fail to meet their expectations.”
The research drew on survey responses from Finnish consumers. The initial study involved 461 participants, while a second followed 239 respondents over two years to examine whether the relationships persisted. A third study, involving 459 participants, compared responses to the T-shirt, bottle and biofuel.
In the two-year follow-up, enjoyment continued to strengthen the relationship between sustainability values and stated purchasing preferences. The negative influence of utilitarian attitudes was also statistically significant, although it had not reached statistical significance in the initial study.
Participants answered questions about their purchasing intentions, but the researchers did not observe sales or ask shoppers to evaluate specific price premiums for sustainable clothing. The Finnish sample also limits how broadly the results can be applied to other markets.
The authors also raised concerns about greenwashing, warning that the emotional appeal of sustainable products could make consumers less inclined to question environmental claims.
“Companies should consider sustainability as part of a product’s overall value. If product marketing emphasizes enjoyment without genuine experiential benefits, it may lose credibility,” Hoffrén said. “For utilitarian products, consumers are also quick to scrutinize whether the environmental benefits are genuine.”
