Dimensões do consumo sustentável no comportamento de consumidores de alimentos saudáveis

Abstract

The aim of this research is to analyze how consumers understand the concept of healthy food in order to identify the main characteristics of the behavior of the consumer of healthy foods with regard to the dimensions of sustainable consumption: ecological awareness, resource saving, recycling and frugality. As far as the methodological aspects of the research are concerned, it is classified as exploratory and of a qualitative approach, and in order to achieve the results, semi-structured interviews were carried out. The results obtained indicate that individuals with healthy eating habits are sensitive to the issues surrounding sustainable consumption, even if they are not fully aware of the environmental impacts caused by their actions. In addition, despite the sensitivity, it was verified that some of the dimensions still have barriers to be overcome. The respondents indicated that they were positive mainly regarding the use of recyclable packaging and recognized the good posture of companies with environmental appeal; in terms of resource saving, all respondents said they controlled water and electricity consumption. The size of the recycling was the most deficient, nor were all respondents cited to carry out the effective separation of materials; and finally, frugality was presented through the reuse of objects and the purchase of used products, mainly.