Lukas Moormann

Lukas Moormann is a master's student in business administration at the University of Osnabrueck. In his master's thesis he is investigating the willingness to pay for sustainable goods through a CBC analysis.

Lukas is now in his 5th year at the University of Osnabrueck, where he spent his last semester as an exchange student in Seoul. He has found that sustainability is becoming increasingly important. People are becoming aware that resources are limited and that we have to adapt to this fact. In a modern and capitalized world, these changes should be regulated through the market system. Following this model suppliers only have an incentive to produce more sustainable goods if consumers are willing to pay the costs that are likely to go along with improving sustainability on the production side. As so, his goal is to learn not only whether consumers are willing to pay more for sustainable goods, but also which variables influence the willingness to pay for sustainability. Based on this data, enterprises will be able to improve their marketing of sustainable goods and therefore promote sustainable consumption.

He found that people are willing to pay (on average) 2.27€ (+65%) more for fairtrade coffee, 1.53€ (+44%) more for eco-labeled coffee, and 0.88€ (+25%) more for coffee with lower carbon footprint. When it comes to factors that influence the willingness to pay for sustainable goods it was found that people with higher income, who are interested in sustainability, and who already show sustainable behaivour in daily life pay more for sustainable goods. Furthermore to achieve higher prices, it is important that consumers can trust the label and that the design of the label is efficient (lucid and understandable). Lastly, women show a tendency to pay more for sustainable goods than men, but that has to undergo further research.