Self-Reflection as a Tool to Foster Profound Sustainable Consumption Decisions

Abstract: The production of goods we buy on a daily basis accounts for a large portion of greenhouse gas emissions. Although consumers have the power to influence industries' behavior through their demand, making sustainable purchases is challenging. Current ICT systems supporting sustainable shopping decisions are not established in consumers' daily lifes. Shopping decisions are made on a complex set of criteria, thus classical persuasive approaches, like recommender-systems, might not be suitable. This work compiles the state of research on ICT supporting sustainable consumption, outlines unsolved challenges, and finally presents a novel concept: a system based on self-reflection instead of classical persuasive approaches, like recommender-systems. Self-reflection provokes revising individual behaviour and decisions, instead of presenting instructions. Combined with additional information on e.g., decision impact, people could learn how to make more sustainable decisions independently. We envision the deployment of such a system, fostering a change towards more sustainable industries to combat climate change.