Interdisciplinary Programs Office Division of Environment and Sustainability 244 Deceptive Environmental Claims and Greenwashing Supervisor: SAUERWEIN Meike / ENVR Student: SUTEDJA Amrita Saraswati / ACCT Course: UROP2100, Spring With increasing amounts of Hong Kong retailers offering “green, sustainable products” on their shelves, the variety of ecolabels and marketing claims advertising sustainability attributes have blossomed. This is not only good news for consumers. It challenges consumers to differentiate certified eco-labels different countries from simple green-marketing symbols and to evaluate which sustainability claims are genuine and what is just greenwashing. To evaluate consumers attitude towards sustainable products and their ability to identify green washing, we conducted a survey among students and Indonesian domestic helpers, as well as follow-up interviews. Results show that both the students and helpers care most about price and quality/performance in buying green products, which could be a barrier to sustainable consumption in Hong Kong given the high price-premiums of such products. In terms of knowledge about product sustainability, students generally showed a better understanding of eco-labels and ability to differentiate greenwashing from genuine sustainability claims or fake eco-labels. Yet, when asked about their confidence/subjective knowledge towards being able to identify greenwashing, they rated their knowledge significantly lower compared to the score achieved when being tested on examples. The next step of this study would be to conduct offline surveys with the helpers to reach a larger group of respondents, and expand the target group to local households, combined with further follow-up interviews. Driving Behavioural Change of BYOBottle by Smart Data and Innovation (SSC Smart Meters Project) Supervisor: SAUERWEIN Meike / ENVR Student: OUDOMYING Por / SSCI CHAN Andrew Gachun / SBM Course: UROP1000, Summer UROP1100, Summer Given the increasingly imminent issue of climate change, the increase in use of single-use plastics given the COVID-19 pandemic, and the public’s misinformed hygiene concerns towards water refill stations, there is a need to introduce interventions to enhance the uptake of “Bring your own bottle” (BYOB) behavior. A multidisciplinary, comprehensive literature review has been conducted on the sociopsychological factors contributing to the consumption of single-use plastic bottles. Hence, a three-staged intervention relating to hygiene perceptions of refill stations, social impact visualization, and material rewards based on personalized tracking will be implemented in the coming year. With results studied with surveys and focus group interviews, we will study the efficacy of interventions based on various value frameworks under the distinctive COVID-19 context.
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