Perceived Justice on Sustainable Consumption

V. Rachmadi Parmono

and Phong Thanh Nguyen

Business Administration Department, Atma Jaya Catholic University of Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia

Department of Project Management, Ho Chi Minh City Open University, Vietnam

Keywords: Sustainable Consumption, Equality, Equity, Resource Scarcity, Moderator.

Abstract: This study aims to analyze the effect of individuals’ perceived justice on sustainable consumption, which is

moderated by the scarcity of resources, and to examine the influence of resource scarcity on the effects of

perceived justice on sustainable consumption. The experimental method was employed. The result of this

study is that perceived justice determines sustainable consumption.

1 INTRODUCTION

Environmental problems and sustainable

consumption are included in justice issues. Rising

consumption is recognized as a source of the

exploitation of environmental resources. Individual

consumption can change the environment in ways

that may harm us or, on the other hand, lead to a better

environment. Some people consume less, but some

others consume more than their sustainable share of

resources. The mitigation of environmental problems

could impose burdens on individuals, from limiting

consumption to increasing financial costs. It is a

justice problem, so the fair distribution of burdens and

benefits is therefpre crucial. Consumption processes

should not distract from individuals’ perceived

justice, and sustainable consumption should realize

environmental justice.

According to Seyfang and Paavola (Seyfang and

Paavola, 2007), there are gaps between sustainable

consumption scholarship and environmental justice

scholarship regarding agency, orientation, and focus.

According to sustainable consumption scholarship,

an individual is an actor that influences the

environmental sustainability. Meanwhile,

environmental justice scholarship sees individuals as

victims of the environment. Sustainable consumption

is a forward-looking orientation that considers how to

make the environment better, whereas environmental

justice stream is a backward-looking orientation that

focuses on the impact of environmental problems on

people.

This paper intends to integrate sustainable

consumption scholarship and environmental justice

scholarship and aims to examine the influence of

individual's justice perception toward sustainable

consumption behavior, as well as the role of resource

scarcity on the relationship between perceived justice

and the willingness to engage in sustainable

consumption.

2 RESEARCH BACKGROUND

Based on Agenda 21 of the Earth Summit in Rio de

Janeiro in 1992, the source of global environmental

problems was unsustainable consumption, and the

summit invited a pattern shift of consumption toward

a more sustainable path that would reduce pressure on

the environment without ignoring basic needs.

Despite many definitions of sustainable consumption,

needs fulfillment, life quality improvement, efficient

utilization of resources, waste minimization, lifecycle

perspective application, and attention to the issue of

justice are the agreement (UNEP, 2001). The

realization of environmental justice should not be

ignored.

Environmental Environmental justice is unbiased

treatment and needs the significant involvement of

people from all backgrounds. Environmental justice

refers to the equal distribution of environmental

effects such as pollution, and also the benefits of

those effects. It implies that no group should shoulder

a disproportionate share of negative environmental

impacts. There are two popular modes of norms of

allocation. The first is the equity principle allocation,

which functions to maintain productivity. The

distribution of benefits or harms is based on the input

726

Parmono, V. and Nguyen, P.

Perceived Justice on Sustainable Consumption.

DOI: 10.5220/0008435907260728

In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Inclusive Business in the Changing World (ICIB 2019), pages 726-728

ISBN: 978-989-758-408-4

or cost to people. The second is the equality principle,

according to which distribution of benefits or harms

should be equal. Environmental justice affects an

individual’s willingness to try for sustainable

consumption(Pellow, 2000). Negative experiences do

not drive individuals to engage in sustainable

consumption, but when facing any environmental

injustice, they will do so (Montada and Kals, 2000).

These findings can be a basis to build Hypothesis H1

as described in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Conceptual Model.

H1: Perceived justice influences willingness to

engage in sustainable consumption

Justice has been a critical part of public discourse

in environmental discussions. The justice issue

matters when addressing resource scarcity(Clayton,

2000). The lower the resource availability, the higher

the demand for fair distribution. The decline of

resource availability causes individuals to adapt their

needs to the carrying capacity of the environment and

must consider others’ needs. Scarcity could shape the

perceived justice of resource distribution and

willingness to contribute to the common interest

(Terman, 2007) . Resource scarcity could encourage

the individual's preference for equity justice in

communities that have different backgrounds(Smith,

1990).

On the other hand, communities with similar

backgrounds favor the equality justice principle as a

means to distribute resources (Carson,2000). These

findings can be a basis to build hypotheses:

H2: Resource scarcity moderates the influence of

equality justice on willingness to engage in

sustainable consumption.

H3: Resource scarcity moderates the influence of

equity justice on willingness to conduct

sustainable consumption

3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This research employed a laboratory experiment

method. The participants of the experiment were

grouped into four: Group of Scarce Equality, Group

of Scarce Equity, Group of Abundant Equality, and

Group of Abundant Equity. The scarcity condition

was symbolized by lower availability of water in

gallons and the abundant condition with the abundant

water.

The environmental problem is classified as one of

public goods. The sustainability of the environment is

determined by the public’s willingness to cooperate

in keeping the environment safe, manifested in

sustainable consumption. The problem might be the

free riders. Social dilemma analysis can be used to

analyze the people's willingness to cooperate or to be

free riders. We employed a one-shot five-player

public goods game. By upholding sustainable

consumption, individuals are prioritizing the common

interest rather than their self-interest. Each participant

decided how they would contribute to a shared public

resource, represented by a gallon of drinking water

from an endowment of Rp.100.000,00. The

researcher informed the participants that any money

they contributed would be doubled and would be

distributed evenly among all members of the groups.

If a participant chose to keep his or her endowment,

while the other four group members contributed their

earnings, they would receive earnings that would

maximize their total earnings. The dependent variable

was the amount of money contributed that represents

the willingness to conduct sustainable consumption.

The perceived justice measures to what extent the

participant perceives the distribution of public

resources. To manipulate participants' understand the

perceived justice as either equality or equity justice,

we alter the wording of the instructions according to

the condition. The public goods were presented with

amounts of drinking water distributed. In the equality

distribution, participants were told that "they could

equally take glasses of water regardless of how much

they contributed." In the other justice principle, the

equity principle, the participants were informed that

"those who contributed more could take more glasses

of water than those contributed less.”

4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Using simple regression analysis, the result of this

research shows that H1 is not rejected, meaning that

perceived justice influences sustainable consumption

(B =0,85). The ANOVA revealed that there is an

interaction between perceived justice with resource

scarcity (F=51,67, sig=0,00) indicating that resource

scarcity moderates the perceived justice to

sustainable consumption, as described in Figure 2.

Perceived

Justice

Willingness to do

sustainable

consumption

Resource

Scarcity

Perceived Justice on Sustainable Consumption

727

The significant influence of perceived justice on

sustainable consumption and the positive relationship

between them shown in this research means that the

higher the level of perceived justice, the higher level

of sustainable consumption. Therefore, there is a

possible synergy between environmental justice

scholarship and sustainable consumption scholarship.

It was affirmed that the feeling of justice would drive

people to make the environment better and

convenient. Injustice causes some inconvenience, so

that people usually intend to ignore such situations

From this research, we also know that the influence

of perceived equality justice on sustainable

consumption occurs more often in a scarcity

environment. Resource scarcity has a positive

relationship with perceived equality justice but a

negative relationship with perceived equity justice

(Hegtvedt, 1987). It means that in a scarcity

environment people tend to prefer harmony and

justify equal outcome (Kazemi, 2006).

Figure 2: The interaction between perceived justice and

resource scarcity.

Returning to the research gaps, the position of

people as the object of an environmental problem can

be empowered as a subject of the environmental

solution. The feeling of injustice can drive people to

shift their behavior to create a new and better

environment.

5 CONCLUSION

We can conclude that perceived justice influences

sustainable consumption, and that scarcity of

resources moderates the relationship between

perceived justice and sustainable consumption. In an

abundant resource situation, the influence of

perceived equality justice on sustainable

consumption is higher than the influence of perceived

equity justice. On the contrary, when resources are

scarce, the influence of perceived equity justice is

higher than that of perceived equality justice. This

research shows that people might be the object of

environmental justice, but they can be the subjects of

sustainable consumption. Environmental injustice

drives people to curb it by engaging in sustainable

consumption. The integration of environmental

justice scholarship and sustainable consumption

scholarship opens up a new perspective in exploring

environmental problems.

REFERENCES

Biel, A., Eek, D., and Garling, T. (1997). Distributive

justice and willingness to pay for municipality

childcare, Social Justice Research, 10 (1), 63- 80.

Carson, A. (2000). Distributive justice reasoning in two

communities in the Philippines. Boston College.

Dissertation unpublished.

Clayton, S. (2000). Models of justice in the environmental

debate, Journal of Social Issues, 56 (3), 459-474.

Fehr, E. and Schmidt, K.M., (1999). A theory of fairness,

competition, and cooperation. The Quarterly Journal of

Economics, 114(3), 817-868.

Grossman, H. I., and Mendoza, J. (2002). Scarcity and

appropriative competition. European Journal of

Political Economy, 19 (4), 747-758.

Hegtvedt, K.A. (1987). When rewards are scarce: equal or

equitable distributions? Social Forces, 66 (1), 183-207

Kazemi, A. (2006). Distributive preferences in social

dilemmas. Department of Psychology, Goteborg

University, Sweden.

Montada, L., and Kals, E. (2000). Political implications of

psychological research on ecological justice and pro-

environmental behavior, International Journal of

Psychology, 35 (2), 168-176.

Pellow, D. N. (2000). Environmental inequality formation:

toward a theory of environmental injustice, American

Behavioral Scientist. 43, 581-603.

Seyfang, G., and Paavola, J. (2007). Sustainable consum-

ption and environmental inequalities. The Centre for

Social and Economic Research on the Global

Environment (CSERGE) Working Paper, No. 07-04.

Smith, C.L. (1990). Resource scarcity and inequality in the

distribution of catch. North American Journal of

Fisheries Management, 10, 269-278.

Terman, A.W. (2007). The desire for unique consumer

product: a moderator of the scarcity polarization

phenomenon? Thesis. Ohio State University

UNEP (United Nation Environment Program). (2001).

Consumption opportunity: strategies for change, a

report for decision makers. Report of John Mahnooche-

ri for The United nations for Environment Programme

(UNEP) Regional Office for Europe, The United

Nations for Environment Programme (UNEP) Division

of Technology, Industry, and Environment.1-69.

ICIB 2019 - The 2nd International Conference on Inclusive Business in the Changing World

728