Influence of consumer behaviour on the circular economy application. The case study of a revival strategy for home textiles at IKEA.

Abstract: Notwithstanding the increasing environmental awareness among consumers, researchers do not witness a substantial shift in consumption and disposal behaviour of textiles. Since research on disposal behaviour of home textile products is currently limited, it is relevant to explore consumers’ decision-making when handling no-longer-wanted home textiles. This thesis aims to better understand consumers’ disposal behaviour with home textiles and factors that influence it and thereby contribute to the process of devising a closed-loop system in Sweden. The thesis employs psychological theories and attempts to unveil relationships among observable variables and behaviour. Both qualitative and quantitative data are gathered through desk research of existing literature, interviews with 24 randomly-selected consumers, interviews with 4 projects’/companies’ representatives and 1 EPR expert, and a survey involving 238 IKEA FAMILY subscribers. Findings demonstrate that donation and reusing are the two most preferred handling options, followed by repair, discard and resell. The analysis identifies a large number of factors potentially influencing textiles disposal behaviour, including personal variables, product characteristics, and situational variables. Additional external factors identified by this research are: incentives for returning, transparency of the system, number and characteristics of involved players, and trust in the collector. Incentives to participate in circular schemes for textiles are: financial rewards; public recognition; co-creation of solutions; transparency; and trust in players handling the system. Major obstacles are identified both at the individual and the societal level. Overall, there is no strong driver for consumers to sort or return textiles, requiring education and guidance by policy makers and companies in adopting sustainable habits. Directions for further research include observing consumers’ disposal behaviour with home textiles, studying correlations between demographic variables and behaviour, an in-depth study on internalization of social norms and its impact on disposal of home textiles, as well as analysis of strategies for companies and policy makers.