Session: DFMLC-07-01/DTM-06-01: Design for Sustainable Product Use, User Behavior

Paper Number: 73911

Start Time: August 19, 02:10 PM

73911 - Understanding How Consumers Transition to and Experience Reusable Fast-Moving Consumer Goods: A Qualitative Exploration of Behaviour Change, Considering Motivation, Ability and Prompts Throughout the User Journey 

Problem

Fast-moving consumer goods (FMCGs), such as cleaning, health, beauty and grooming products, are purchased frequently for a low price and tend to be used within a short time frame before being thrown away, most often in landfill and incineration waste streams. Current FMCG product design alongside ingrained patterns of consumer behaviour reinforce these outcomes. Circular practices like recycling and reuse are becoming increasingly visible in the FMCG market and offer a solution to reduce environmental impact. Consumers play an integral role in these new systems through actions like keeping and using durable products or taking end-of-life resources to specific locations to be intercepted for recycling or reuse. Research on reuse behaviouris sparse in the literature and is inadequate for four key reasons: 1) it looks at a small range of products independently without a holistic understanding of the market, 2) insights are often based on expected or intended behaviour, 2) there is a tendency to focus on a specific stage of the product lifecycle (e.g. purchase, use or disposal), and 3) reuse is often researched as an isolated circular behaviour yet, in reality, it is a practiced in parallel with disposal and recycling. As consumers transition to reuse, it is therefore necessary to build a broader understanding of reflective and actual experiences for a wider range of FMCGs across the user journey. This will help to generate the insights necessary for systemic change.

Method

This research collects qualitative data through a set of 15 in-depth semi-structured consumer interviews. Selected reuse products available to UK consumers are explored, including razor and toothbrush handles with replaceable heads, refills for home or personal care bottles and food containers, beverage bottles and hot drinks cups, coffee pods, and cloth nappies. Guided by the Transtheoretical Model of Behaviour Change, a pre-screening questionnaire sourced consumers at different stages of their reuse journeys. For each type of reusable product, the sample includes consumers who 1) Have not previously considered, 2) Have previously considered but decided not to use, 3) Are currently considering, 4) Previously used but stopped, 5) Use and are becoming familiar, and 6) Use and feel committed to using. The interview questions reflect key behavioural theory (i.e. FOGG determines that motivation, ability and prompts must converge for a behaviour to occur). The questions were also structured to trace the entire consumer journey, from the pre-purchase stage through to the post-use stage. Following the interviews, a thematic content analysis was carried out to identify themes and patterns across the data.

Results and Conclusion

Through layering the Transtheoretical Model of behaviour change (pre-contemplation, contemplation, determination, action, maintenance), the three components of behaviour as identified by FOGG (motivation, ability and prompt) and behaviour chains (which break down the consumer journey from pre-purchase to post-use), this research generates wider and deeper stage specific insights than previously offered. The findings explore how consumers transition to reusable FMCG products, tracing the habit formation process and highlighting how consumers actual journeys deviate from the path that is expected (e.g. through their parallel and often interchangeable use of disposable products).This provides invaluable insights into how to encourage behaviours with an increased capacity to reduce environmental impact (reuse) over lower ranking (recycling, disposal) strategies. Factors that motivate, enable and prompt consumers to make critical decisions in considering, transitioning to and maintaining FMCG reuse are offered. Reuse opportunities for FMCGs are presented, such as the ability of FMCG reuse to offer a level of convenience that matches or surpasses that of single use disposables and the high level of emotional attachment that can be formed between re-users and durable products. Barriers, such as the overconsumption of reusable products and incorrect and premature disposal of reusable FMCGs, are also identified. The results generate important suggestions on how to design, communicate and generate policy in ways that could aid more successful reuse of FMCGs.

Presenting Author: Catriona Tassell Dyson School of Design Engineering, Imperial College London

Authors:

Catriona Tassell Dyson School of Design Engineering, Imperial College London
Marco Aurisichhio Dyson School of Design Engineering, Imperial College London