Sustainable native: Sustainable consumption behavior among young Italians

The research process presented here is intended to provide a descriptive profile of sustainable native: to investigate the relationship between consumption and sustainability among adolescents trying to understand whether, and if so to what extent, choices, attitudes and consumption behavior of adolescents are influenced by a vision on sustainability, and what was the role played by information in the development of this process. Adolescents are not only the next generation of adults with consumer power, but they currently also have considerable spending power. Teens also influence food choices and the purchasing decisions of their families and peers. Although studies show a growth of sustainable consumers, yet there are few studies that pay attention on young consumer’ green purchasing behavior and on the aspect related to that. A quali-quantitative approach has been used. The results show that the “sustainable native” do not act still in a sustainable manner, and that the family is still the more relevant source in education to sustainability. Surveyed adolescents did not have strong or consistent beliefs or attitudes about the sustainability and the environmental impact of food production practices. There is a need to make salient to adolescents the environmental impact of food production practices through both cognitive and experiential approaches.