사회적 경제를 활용한 친환경 소비 확산방안 = A Study on Expansion of Pro-Environmental Consumption Using Social Economy

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Pro-environmental behavior and consumption can be discussed for new value and purpose, aimed at creating a sustainable, social and economic community. However, expansion of pro-environmental behavior and consumption should be accompanied not only by the trust of consumers in products and services, but also by overall changes in production, sales and distribution of products and services including the social relations and roles of companies. This study aims to discuss the social economy as a new paradigm and a mediator that can bring about such changes. The purpose of this study is to identify factors that can combine pro-environmental behavior and consumption with social economy, and construct a theoretical framework to describe and examine its policy possibilities in expanding the pro-environmental behavior and consumption. To do this, the study conducts literature review, depth interview and SNS analysis.
First, through the literature review, the study derives the theoretical framework that connects with the pro-environmental behavior and consumption and social economy. Based on the socio-technical regime, this framework starts with the individual motivations(individual factors) of the pro-environmental behavior and consumption, and extends to social-contextual factors. The framework also reflects the roles and functions of the social economy organization as a mediator that can bridge the gap between these individual and social-contextual factors. Finally, the framework shows how socio-technological change, including the social media, can expand the functions and roles of the social economy organization. Through the theoretical framework, it confirms that the pro-environmental behavior and consumption and social economy can be linked in the following areas: 1) developing new types of alternative products and services reflecting social innovation, 2) inducing the proenvironmental behavior and consumption using the community networking 3) expanding pro-environmental behavior and consumption in everyday life, 4) developing social norms and sharing social values and 5) marketing and sales utilizing technologies related to the social niche.
Next, the study conducts depth interviews with the managers of the total 15 social economy organizations related to the pro-environmental products or services in order to find out how the factors of linkage between the pro-environmental behavior and consumption and social economy derived from the theoretical model actually appear. First, in terms of motivation and innovation of the social economy organization, they pursue both social and environmental goals by emphasizing community sustainability and cooperation among the community members. In addition, their environmental purposes are connected directly or indirectly with the pro-environmental behavior and consumption. Secondly, the social economic organizations contribute to education, publicity and culture related to the environment through the local community networking. These contributions lead consumers to increase their pro-environmental behavior and consumption in their everyday lives. In other words, there has been a constant problem that environmental perceptions of the consumers do not lead to their behaviors, and the social economy organizations try to solve these problems in aspect of community approach. In addition, the social economy organizations aim that the behavior and consumption of customers are turned eco-friendly through changes in the community itself. In this process of changes, the social economy organizations attempt to form social norms between internal and external members and to share them constantly.
Finally, the social economy organization actively utilizes crowd-funding, SNS publicity and online stores, which are discussed as technologies related to the social niche. In particular, crowd-funding is a new way to increase the pro-environmental behavior and consumption in terms of sharing the social norms and perceptions. Finally, in this study, SNS analysis identifies the objects that are central to the pro-environmental behavior and consumption, and what their cognitive factors are. The SNS analysis is performed by extracting the posts with the “eco-friendly” hashtag entered into the Instagram. Through this, the study grasps the forms of technologies related to social niche and the types of objects that can increase the pro-environmental behavior and consumption. Based on the results of the analysis, the following three implications are derived; 1) Products and services related to the pro-environmental behavior and consumption linked to the domain of everyday life are needed, 2) When considering perceptions of actors, the form of driving pro-environmental behavior and consumption should be simplified and 3) Products and services related to the health of children and families are required, and trust schemes that can verify these products and services are needed. Interview results show that the social economy organization focuses on the products and services that are closely related to the consumer’s life in the realm of everyday life. Therefore, expansion of the social economy organization in the area of pro-environmental behavior and consumption will meet the needs of the potential consumers. However, it is necessary to make systematic improvements to ensure the eco-friendliness and reliability of products and services produced by the social economy organization.
Through the above process, this study can derive the following three implications. First, it is necessary to find out and expand the social economy organization in order to promote pro-environmental behavior and consumption. Social values of the social economy organization linked with good consumption and ethical consumption can lead to a link between perceptions and behaviors by expanding meaningful social perceptions and norms for the community. Second, although the number of social enterprises and cooperatives in the environmental sector has been increasing, there is no intermediate organization at the level of the Ministry of Environment to support them. Therefore a specialized institution and an authentication requirement are needed. The authentication requirement is especially needed to demonstrate trust schemes that support the social innovation in the social economy organization in the area of pro-environmental behavior and consumption. Third, it is necessary to provide policy support to expand the pro-environmental behavior and consumption using the emerging private platform. Recently, the private platforms combining ICT, social consumption and investment such as crowd-funding and social funding are emerging, and it is necessary to utilize them positively. It is also necessary to provide policy support for such a private platform to monitor pro-actively and to prevent the unreasonable marks of eco-friendliness.
Based on these policy implications, this study presents the following three policies as alternatives. First, expanding its role as the intermediate organization of the Green Purchasing Support Center is needed. According to the results of this study, the Green Purchasing Support Center helps to solve the difficulties of the social economy organization of the pro-environmental consumption and behavior in various fields such as product development, distribution, sales and publicity. Therefore, this study proposes a policy to expand the role of the current Green Purchasing Support Center as a base for fostering the social economy organization in the area of pro-environmental consumption and behavior. Second, the study proposes for Ministry of Environment to expand designation of the environment-oriented pre-social enterprise and to support the establishment of them. The Ministry of Environment should not only perform the role of the environment-oriented pre-social enterprise authentication but also form a virtuous circulation that can find out the social economy organization linked with the pro-environmental consumption, and develop them into the pre-social and social enterprises. In order to do this, it is necessary to expand policy support for the foundation of enterprises, such as providing seed money for the pro-environmental product development in cooperation with private companies. Third, the study introduces premium environmental product declaration combined with good consumption. It is necessary to provide policy support to assign the social economy organization premium environmental product declaration after verifying the performance in products and services produced by them in order to simultaneously achieve the good consumption, ethical consumption and pro-environmental consumption. It is also necessary to establish a premium environmental product declaration so that good consumption and ethical consumption, including the concepts of environmental impact, rights of workers, the safety of users and animal & plant protection, can be expanded in connection with the pro-environmental consumption.