Intervention policies for promoting green consumption behavior: An interdisciplinary systematic review and future directions

Abstract

Intervention policies play a crucial role in promoting the green transformation of consumption patterns and reducing consumer-side carbon emissions. This topic has been extensively explored by interdisciplinary scholars. However, these studies have not substantially improved our understanding of how intervention policies effectively encourage consumers to engage in green consumption. Using the antecedent-decision-outcome (ADO) framework, this study systematically reviewed 290 interdisciplinary papers and developed a causal integration framework of "policy antecedents-decision mechanisms-behavioral outcomes" to foster green consumption. The findings indicate: (1) policy instruments affecting green consumption include four increasingly intrusive types-information-based, nudging, market-based, and regulatory. (2) Changes in consumers' cognition, emotions, and economic costs mediate the impact of intervention policies on green consumption behavior. (3) Intervention practices, external environments, and consumer differences moderate the effectiveness of policies in promoting green consumption. (4) Green consumption behaviors, influenced by policies and decision mechanisms, vary in terms of directness, duration, group dynamics, and across the consumption chain. Additionally, alignment with the digital age, this study proposes future research directions for four perspectives: innovative instruments, underlying mechanisms, novel effects and advanced technologies.

Keywords: Green consumption behavior; Interdisciplinary; Intervention policy; Research direction; Systematic review.