Methods
One thousand and two hundred adults in Ireland were recruited by a market research agency to be nationally representative by age, gender, location and socio-economic status (Table 1). Very few (5.9%) reported never having shopped online, with the majority (69.7%) doing so at least once every few months. Sample size was set to allow for approximately 400 participants per condition, based on previous nutritional labelling research in the same population (Robertson et al., 2023). Participants were paid €3 for completing the study, which took a median of 14 minutes. Participants were informed that the study was about how people shop for clothes online; they were not made aware of the environmental focus of the study until after using the online shop.
Main Findings
Compared to the control condition, participants exposed to binary label chose 10% more sustainable products. Eco-score participants, however, chose 20% more, and were twice as likely to exclusively buy the most sustainable products. There was no effect on the number of items purchased, implying a shift towards more sustainably produced clothing. Exploratory analyses revealed that the effects were driven by greater salience of the eco-score system and that effects were stronger among those most concerned about the environment. Those who saw the eco-labels reported the same level of shopping satisfaction and willingness to wear selected clothes as those in the control condition. Additional findings revealed a general underestimation of clothing production's environmental impact and strong support for implementing the eco-score both online and in-store.
