The Business of ‘Behaviour Change’: Analyzing the consumer-oriented corporate sustainability journey of low-temperature laundry

Dr Josephine Mylan

Sustainable Consumption Institute & Manchester Institute of Innovation Research, Manchester Business School, The University of Manchester

188 Waterloo Place, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK

Abstract

This article contributes to the literature on corporate sustainability management by investigating corporate-led consumer ‘behaviour change’ initiative designed to promote sustainable consumption. This is done through an in depth longitudinal case study of Procter and Gamble’s (P&G) low temperature laundry initiative as it unfolded over a ten year period to become an industry-wide campaign with broad societal acceptance and institutional support by 2013. The analysis is guided by concepts from three prominent organizational theories used in the study of corporate sustainability (stakeholder theory, institutional theory, and the resource based view of the firm). The case demonstrates that a successful behaviour change initiative involves far more than providing information or incentive for consumers, entailing changes in regulation, technology, product design, mental models and legitimacy. P&G’s management strategy can be viewed as an emergent and open-ended innovation journey that took time, required resources and involved adjustments in goals as mental models evolved.

Key words

Innovation journey; eco innovation; sustainable consumption and production; behaviour change; climate change; consumer practice; Corporate sustainability management.

1. Introduction

This article aims to contribute to the literature on sustainability management (Montiel and Delgado-Ceballos, 2014; Schaltegger et al., 2013; Starik and Kanashiro, 2013), within which four types of firm strategy can be distinguished: 1) cleaner production, which addresses internal production processes, for example, reducing waste, enhancing efficiency, and closing material loops (Frondel et al., 2007), 2) environmental supply chain management, which focuses on greening supply arrangements and practices of suppliers (Seuring and Müller, 2008), 3) the design and development of greener products and services (Kemp and Oltra, 2011), and 4) sustainable consumption, which is a consumer-oriented approach. This paper aims to make a contribution to this last strategy, which is less prominent than the other three types, but has gained visibility in recent years in OECD countries and embodies high hopes for delivering sustainability outcomes (Spaargaren and van Koppen, 2009).

Firms’ tactics for promoting ‘sustainable consumption’ usually aim to persuade consumers to purchase greener alternatives (such as energy efficient light bulbs or hybrid cars) through provision of information (via labels e.g. Young et al. 2009) or appeal to consumer ethics or values (via ‘social marketing’ e.g. Peattie and Peattie, 2009). So, most firm initiatives to promote sustainable consumption equate consumer ‘behaviour change’ with the purchase of greener products. While this is an important step, the literature on sustainable consumption and production (Geels et al., 2015, Tukker et al., 2008) also highlights the importance of the actual use of greener products, and their incorporation into daily life, for delivering sustainable outcomes (Ozaki et al., 2013).

While firms rarely try to change how consumers use products, there are some recent instances where they have attempted to intervene in domestic practices to promote sustainable consumption. UK supermarkets, for instance, have been instrumental in initiatives which aim to reduce domestic food waste (Evans and Welch, 2015). Another example is initiatives by branded clothing companies, including retailers and jeans brands, to stimulate reuse of clothing (Armstrong et al., 2016). This paper aims to further develop the understanding of corporate sustainable consumption initiatives that attempt to engage more deeply with peoples’ everyday lives, by investigating the case of ‘low temperature laundry’, which attempted to alter how people do domestic laundry.

Procter & Gamble’s (P&G) ‘low-temperature laundry’ initiative aimed to change consumer behaviour from washing clothes at 40, 60 or 900C to laundering at lower temperatures (i.e. 300C or lower). Low-temperature laundry is viewed as a green initiative, because it reduces the carbon footprint associated with domestic washing. Pioneered by P&G in the early 2000s, through their leading detergent brand Ariel, the initiative subsequently gained support from the wider detergents industry (including the industry body AISE[1]), washing machine manufacturers, regulators, NGOs, and consumer organizations. By the early 2010s, washing clothes at lower temperatures was also endorsed by policymakers as desirable green consumer behaviour. The UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), for example, highlights ‘low-temperature laundry’ as one of five ‘behavioral’ energy efficiency measures which could contribute to reductions of domestic energy required to meet UK climate change targets (DECC, 2012). In 2013, the European Commissioner for Climate Change, Connie Hedegaard, endorsed the launch of a Europe wide consumer information campaign on the issue as part of the ‘Climate You Like’ program, stating:

‘I very much welcome the “I prefer 30°” campaign by A.I.S.E. This is an example of partnership at its best and is fully in the spirit of the Commission’s aim to encourage multi-stakeholder action in the fight against climate change. If we all make small changes to our daily habits, together we CAN make a big difference. Let’s work together for a better climate - one machine wash at a time!’

Connie Hedegaard, European Commissioner for Climate Action (AISE, 2013: 2)

While ‘behaviour change’ as a corporate sustainability strategy might initially look like a relatively straightforward matter of educating consumers about environmental impacts of their behaviour and persuading them to act differently, this paper demonstrates that this is not the case. Instead of simply persuading consumers to turn down the dial on the washing machine, the case study will demonstrate the co-evolutionary and multi-actor nature of the initiative, which entailed changes in technology, regulation, organizational identity, mental models and legitimacy within the detergent industry and beyond. As such, P&G’s management of the initiative was not a straightforward process of goal identification, planning and implementation. Rather, the initiative is better viewed as an emergent and open-ended ‘innovation journey’ (Van de Ven et al., 1999), which was initiated by P&G, and entailed management on multiple dimensions, including organizational capabilities, interpretations, and stakeholders, but ultimately entailed processes beyond the sphere of influence of the corporation.

The paper addresses the empirical question: How did P&G manage the low-temperature laundry initiative as it grew from a general idea in the late 1990s to an industry-wide campaign with broad societal acceptance and institutional support by 2013? To answer this question, an in-depth longitudinal case study of P&G’s initiative is presented, using a range of data including publicly available documents and semi-structured expert interviews with representatives from P&G and the detergents industry (see section 3 for a further discussion of methods). To address the co-evolutionary complexity of the innovation journey, which entailed management on multiple dimensions, insights from three key perspectives used in the corporate sustainability management literature (Starik and Kanashiro, 2013; Montiel and Delgado-Ceballos, 2014) are mobilized to guide the case study and analysis: stakeholder theory, the resource-based view of the firm and institutional theory.

The paper is structured as follows. Section 2 presents guiding concepts from three analytical approaches. It discusses the general idea behind each perspective and its relevance for sustainability management and the particular case. Section 3 describes the methodology and data-collection methods. Section 4 presents a longitudinal case study of the low-temperature laundry initiative organized in four phases highlighting the key developments from 1999 to 2012. Section 5 provides a deeper analysis of the innovation journey, explicitly using concepts from the three analytical approaches, and exploring their interaction. The paper ends with conclusions and broader implications in Section 6.

2. Guiding concepts from three analytical approaches

The engagement of corporations with the specific sustainable consumption strategy of ‘behaviour change’ (aimed at changing people’s daily practices) is relatively new, and the limited amount of work on it means that I cannot draw on ready-made conceptual frameworks. In order to identify and explain the most interesting aspects of the multi-dimensional phenomenon, my strategy is therefore to use guiding concepts from established perspectives in corporate sustainability management research. Recent reviews (Starik and Kanashiro, 2013; Montiel and Delgado-Ceballos, 2014) identified three prominent organizational theories applied to understanding sustainability management: stakeholder theory, the resource-based view of the firm and institutional theory. Each of these theories offers a different perspective on the factors that are important for understanding firms’ engagement with sustainability. I therefore mobilize key concepts from these three perspectives to analyze the innovation journey of P&G’s low-temperature initiative, and highlight the most interesting aspects of this corporate-led sustainable consumption strategy. The following section first describes the general orientation of each perspective and discusses its relevance for sustainability management in turn. The section ends with a summary of the key guiding concepts mobilized in the analysis of the case.

2.1. Stakeholder theory

The general point of stakeholder theory is to broaden the view of corporate performance beyond economic considerations and shareholders to also include social and ethical performance (Carroll, 1979; Freeman, 1984) and relations with stakeholders such as local communities, consumers, NGOs and wider publics. Focusing on the relationships between the organization and its stakeholders, stakeholder theory presents a broad understanding of value, beyond purely financial considerations, in which firms incorporate non-economic considerations into business activities, such as quality of life, community cohesion or low carbon (Donaldson and Preston, 1995).

In the context of sustainability management, stakeholder theory is often used to draw attention to various external stakeholder pressures that help explain why firms go green, e.g. demands from activists (Den Hond and De Bakker, 2007), policymakers (Demirel and Kesidou, 2011), NGOs (Doh and Guay, 2006) and local communities (Kassinis and Vafeas, 2006). The literature on stakeholder management (Buysse and Verbeke, 2003; Mahon, and Wartick, 2003) further suggests that firms can also pro-actively engage with stakeholders in the development and implementation of environmental strategies. Relevant aspects of stakeholder management include: developing networks in order to consult stakeholders and learn about concerns, framing problems and solutions in a way that attracts interest from stakeholders, and negotiating about the design of environmental solutions. This literature is relevant for the case study because P&G’s initiative entailed multiple changes beyond its direct control. The initiative therefore required them to engage with a range of different stakeholders.

2.2. Resource-based view

The general point of the resource-based view of the firm (Wernerfelt, 1984) is that competitive advantage stems from a bundle of resources that are valuable, rare, difficult to imitate and non-substitutable (Barney, 1991).[2] Subsequent work in this tradition increasingly came to emphasize the importance of knowledge and capabilities as crucial resources (Teece, 1986; Grant, 1996).

In the context of sustainability management, the resource-based view has been used to identify strategic capabilities that are important for sustainability management, such as pollution prevention, product stewardship, clean technology (Hart, 1995; Shrivastara and Hart 1998). The literature on eco-innovation[3] (Kemp and Oltra, 2011; Mylan et al., 2015) further emphasizes the importance of learning processes to build or acquire the required capabilities for green technologies. For more radical eco-innovations, which face more uncertainty and non-linearity in innovation journeys, this literature also emphasizes the experimental and open-ended character of learning processes which require sequences of learning-by-doing (Geels et al., 2008; Schot and Geels, 2008). These broader learning processes not only involve the build-up of new knowledge and capabilities, but also the development of new interpretations, beliefs and mental models (Schön, 1983; Gavetti and Levinthal, 2000). Accumulation of information within existing cognitive frames constitutes first-order learning, while alteration of cognitive frames constitutes second-order learning (Argyris, 1976). Although most of the eco-innovation literature focuses on green technologies, some of the broader notions of learning are likely to also hold relevance for consumer-oriented green initiatives such the P&G case.

2.3. Institutional theory

The general point of institutional theory is that firms operate not just in an economic environment, but also in an institutional environment which affects them in non-economic ways: ‘In institutional environments, organizations compete for social fitness rather than economic efficiency’ (Powell, 1991: 184). The selection criterion for social fitness is legitimacy, which Suchman (1995: p. 574) defines as: ‘a generalized perception or assumption that the actions of an entity are desirable, proper, or appropriate within some socially constructed system of norms, values, beliefs and definitions’. So, institutions exert external selection pressure, because firms are supposed to conform to the expectations sustained by existing institutions. Failure to do so may lower their legitimacy in the eyes of wider publics, consumers, and policymakers.

In the context of sustainability management, scholars using institutional theory have emphasized various institutional pressures that stimulate firms to go green, e.g. formal-regulatory pressures (Hoffman, 1999), mimetic pressures from other organizations (Campbell, 2007; Husted and Allen 2006) or normative pressures from public opinion (Hajer, 1995). While institutional theory often emphasizes the existence of external isomorphic pressures acting on organizations, the idea of institutional entrepreneurship (e.g. Battilana et al., 2009) suggests that organizations can also actively attempt to change norms, beliefs or regulations. Important tactics include story-telling and the development of favorable narratives about the organization or initiative (Lounsbury and Glynn, 2001; Bansal and Clelland, 2004), the use of analogies with well-established practices to make new things look more familiar (Etzion and Ferraro, 2010; Hargadon and Douglas, 2001), the use of established brands and reputations to confer trust, and the creation of coalitions with trusted actors. This literature is relevant for the case, because P&G’s initiative initially faced the ‘liability of newness’ (Freeman et al., 1983). Establishing legitimacy via institutional entrepreneurship was therefore an important dimension of the innovation journey.

2.4. Key guiding concepts

Since the three theories discussed above represent large and diverse bodies of literature, I will reduce their complexity to guide the empirical description and subsequent analysis. Focusing on the most relevant insights from the different theories, I will use the following three guiding concepts: 1) stakeholder networks (and activities involved in building networks such as consultation and negotiation about design specifics, efforts to persuade and enrol stakeholders; 2) learning processes (including first-order learning, second-order learning and changes in mental models); and 3) institutional entrepreneurship (including activities such as lobbying, story-telling, framing).

3. Methodology

The ‘behaviour change’ strategy was explored through a longitudinal case study. The approach was chosen because the research was exploratory in nature and many of the guiding analytical concepts, discussed above, are qualitative and unfold over time. The case was developed through several iterations of data collection and interpretation, triangulating data from documentary analysis and in-depth expert interview.

The first-round analysis reviewed corporate sustainability reports of firms (including producers and retailers of detergents, washing machines and clothing), market research data and UK and EU energy policy documents, in order to develop a general understanding of the scope of the initiative and the engagement of different actors. The second-round analysis served to both sharpen the research question and deepen the understanding of P&G’s role in the initiative through key informant interviews with European and UK detergent trade associations (AISE and UKCPI). In-depth semi-structured interviews were used to gain insight into industry dynamics with respect to sustainability and the role of P&G in the evolution of the initiative. The third-round involved the triangulation of the emerging account with information in the public domain. This was done through an extensive survey of publicly available documents making reference to low-temperature laundry. Documents were collected using internet searches and snowballing from suggestions by interviewees, and included UK and EU regulations and policies, corporate and NGO websites. A content analysis of all public material produced by the European Detergent Industry body AISE 1995-2013 was conducted.

The fourth-round developed a deeper understanding of how P&G’s engagement with the initiative developed over time. This included a systematic content analysis of P&Gs sustainability and social responsibility reports 1999-2013 and key informant interviews with representatives of P&G. In-depth semi-structured interviews were undertaken with individuals working in marketing, sustainability and R&D departments of P&G. Interviews explored P&Gs organizational practices, key events and responses related to the evolution of the initiative. Ten people were interviewed in total (6 face-to-face and 4 by telephone), lasting between 30mins and 1.5hrs (see Appendix 1 for details). Interviews were recorded, transcribed and coded using the conceptual categories outlined in section 2. Interviewees were also asked to provide additional contextual documentation with relevance for the understanding of P&Gs activities, which several did. Additionally, site visits were conducted to P&G headquarters in Geneva Switzerland in 2012 and the R&D laboratories in Newcastle UK in 2013, which enabled informal conversations. I also attended AISE-run industry events in Brussels during 2012, which enabled further conversations with representatives from a range of organizations (including Unilever, Henkel and Electrolux), during which emerging impressions from the research were shared and opinions elicited.

4. Case study: How P&G pioneered green washing

Section 4.1 first describes the (provisional) end point of the innovation journey, by presenting evidence of the societal acceptance of ‘low-temperature laundry’ as a green consumer behaviour in the UK, the first country where the initiative was rolled out. The subsequent sections then present the case chronologically, explaining how the initiative unfolded through different periods from 1999 to 2013, initially within the corporation and subsequently with greater involvement of external stakeholders. To signpost the unfolding process, Figure 1 presents a timeline of key events in the initiative.