Incentives and Inhibitors of Sustainable Consumption: A Qualitative Study among Urmia Informants

Sustainable consumption in Iran needs serious attention. The present study, using the qualitative approach, studies the status of sustainable consumption among Urmia citizens as well as the incentives and inhibitors affecting this behavior. The data was collected through semi-structured deep interviews. Data analysis showed that the simultaneous effect of incentives and inhibitors of consumer behavior has led to the emergenceof a “Paradoxical Sustainable Consumption” among the informants. It means that on one hand, individuals with health-oriented, economy-oriented, and nature-oriented incentives which are incentives of sustainable behavior show sustainable consumption behavior, but on the other hand due to informants’ dissatisfaction with institutional and social structures that have a deterrent role in the formation of the sustainable consumption behavior they show an unsustainable consumption pattern.