Sustainable consumption has been addressed in the literature in recent years, especially in relation to changing from a traditional consumption to sustainable consumption. Reducing environmental impacts from waste generation has been the focal point of sustainable consumption. However, a large number of attributes has caused a complexity in understanding which attributes effectively enhance the consumption. In particular, sustainable consumption has been facing a negative trend due to low levels of knowledge about packaging’s environmental impact, failed communication which leads to misperception and irresponsible behavior. This study contributes to proposing a set of attributes for enhancing sustainable consumption in the Indonesian food industry, to fulfill the lack of understanding of the attribute interrelationships using qualitative information. This study proposes a set of attributes to enhance sustainable consumption with qualitative information by assessing the interrelationships among the attributes employing the Delphi method and fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory method to provide causal and effect relationships. As a result, corporate communication, consumer perception, consumer behavior, and product packaging are major aspects for sustainable consumption enhancement. Corporate communication becomes a major driver to affect perception and behavior. This study proposes a managerial insight for the packaged food industry on improving several criteria including green marketing, green consumerism, verbal features, and importance of information.

Food packaging is costly to consumers and generates a huge volume of packaging waste, especially in Indonesia. Prior studies have neglected to construct a causal sustainable consumption intention model in food industry and link to the consumer willingness to pay under preference uncertainties. To address the gaps, this study explores consumer attributes to build a causal sustainable consumption intention model and takes the model to address the consumer willingness to pay under preference uncertainties. This study proposes a causal model that integrates five aspects of sustainable consumption intention model: (1) sustainable consumption knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors; (2) government policy and regulation on sustainable consumption; (3) recycled packaging eco-labeling certification; (4) supply chain innovation and infrastructure; and (5) sustainable product purchasing features. This study uses the fuzzy Delphi method to confirm the reliability and validate the criteria and applies cause and effect model to address the causal model. In addition, this study collects 428 valid responses to address the willingness to pay for causal sustainable consumption intention model and a cognitive best-worst choice experiment to confirm the model in the food industry. The result reveals that recycled packaging eco-labeling certification is the major aspect for enhancing the model, followed by government policy and regulation and supply chain innovation and infrastructure. In practice, consumers incur inconvenience in purchasing sustainable food products but prefer recycled packaging material at a standardized price.

This study contributes to an understanding of valid sustainable consumption behavior attributes in Indonesia, due to the current unsustainability of product usage and environmental damage. Increasing consumption requires an understanding and exploration of important aspects of the consumption process and consumers’ behaviour. Sustainable consumption fulfils human needs, increases quality of life, reduces environmental damage and minimizes the risk to human health. A set of qualitative aspects and criteria is selected, validated by experts, using the Delphi method. Qualitative information is translated into comparable scales by applying fuzzy set theory. The interrelationships among the attributes are then identified by using a decision-making trial evaluation in the laboratory. Choquet integral is used to eliminate problems of expert subjectivity and this interactivity method, thus, provides higher insight into effectively addressing uncertainties. The results show that social impact and consumer behavior have a significant role in driving sustainable consumption behavior, representing an individual’s motivation in planning or decision making when performing a specific sustainable behavior. Sustainable consumption behavior is motivated by perceived consumer effectiveness, trust from consumers, environmental knowledge, environmental responsibility, behavioral intention, emotion, and motivation regarding social consumption mot. Theoretical and managerial implications are also provided.