PROJECT SUMMARY

Many consumer product labels in Australia claim environmental benefits and/or pro-social outcomes (i.e. fair trade labels, energy rating program). Our aim with this study was to understand whether such labelling schemes are effective in changing behaviour and the extent to which they can be used to promote and increase producer and consumer adoption of circular economy products and services.

KEY ACTIVITIES

To capture different perspectives on the problem, this project involved:

1. A rapid evidence review on the effectiveness of labelling schemes around the world.

2. Insights from the review were translated into an experimental online survey to test consumer interest in circular products and whether CE labelling schemes could be effective in an Australian context.

3. Development of online tool.

REVIEWS

In response to jurisdictions across Australia, and globally, exploring Circular Economy (CE) policies, the BWA Waste and Circular Economy Collaboration conducted a rapid evidence review on the potential role of eco-labels in supporting the future implementation of policies that support a transition to CE. Our research aims to inform policy dialogue and identify relevant behavioural public policy experiments.

In conducting our rapid evidence review, we asked ourselves:

"What is the effectiveness of product labelling schemes targeting Circular Economy outcomes on behaviour and practice?"

FINDINGS

Our studies mainly focussed on consumer purchases, where we noticed a number of consistent themes, including:

• trust

• knowledge and awareness

• consumer preferences

• values

• price

• habits.

TRIAL SUMMARY

As no comprehensive CE labelling scheme currently exists in Australia, we sought to understand what circular characteristics a hypothetical CE label should target for maximum behaviour change as a precursor to any labelling scheme exploration in the Australian context.

Building on the Rapid Review, the collaboration identified the following interests to examine the effectiveness of CE labelling within the Australian context:

• How much consumer interest is there in CE characteristics and new labelling schemes?

• Under what conditions might CE labels impact?

• What is the knowledge & awareness of CE characteristics and of existing eco-labels?

• How trusted are eco-labelling schemes?

FINDINGS

Overall, our findings show potential for new or expanded schemes assuring CE characteristics. For maximum behaviour change, durability or product lifetime labelling is particularly promising, followed by recyclability. However, price is consistently shown to be the single most important attribute to increasing the likelihood of purchases of products with CE attributes for consumers.

To take a deeper look into our trial findings, and how producers, manufacturers, and policymakers can strengthen eco-labelling schemes to change consumer purchasing behaviour, see our infographic for a quick overview or our initial report for our complete findings.