IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-02553306.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Cutting the Internet's Environmental Footprint: An Analysis of Consumers' Self-Attribution of Responsibility

Author

Listed:
  • Leïla Elgaaïed-Gambier

    (TBS - Toulouse Business School)

  • Laurent Bertrandias

    (TBS - Toulouse Business School)

  • Yohan Bernard

    (CREGO - Centre de Recherche en Gestion des Organisations - Université de Haute-Alsace (UHA) - Université de Haute-Alsace (UHA) Mulhouse - Colmar - UB - Université de Bourgogne - UBFC - Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté [COMUE] - UFC - Université de Franche-Comté - UBFC - Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté [COMUE])

Abstract

This research project investigates consumers' willingness to adopt online pro-environmental behaviors. First, we conducted an exploratory qualitative study that revealed respondents' low awareness of the environmental impact of Internet usage and reluctance to change their online behaviors. Consumers tend to decline all responsibility and expect companies and public authorities to take the necessary measures. Moreover, they are led by contradictory motives: not harming the environment on the one hand and continuing to use the Internet the way they currently do on the other. Based on these findings, two quantitative studies were conducted to investigate the determinants of consumers' self-attribution of responsibility to reduce the digital footprint of their online activity (e.g., using an eco-friendly search engine). Our conceptual model emphasizes the mechanisms of cognitive dissonance and highlights the crucial role of skepticism toward pro-environmental solutions. Implications for IT companies and public policy makers are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Leïla Elgaaïed-Gambier & Laurent Bertrandias & Yohan Bernard, 2020. "Cutting the Internet's Environmental Footprint: An Analysis of Consumers' Self-Attribution of Responsibility," Post-Print hal-02553306, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02553306
    DOI: 10.1016/j.intmar.2020.02.001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Junika Napitupulu & Septony B. Siahaan & Sunday Ade Sitorus, 2023. "Renewable Energy and its Moderation on Green Home Selection in Indonesia: Bridging Environment, Product, and Value," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 13(6), pages 259-269, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02553306. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.