S10 - Session O1 - Communication of sustainability in horticulture - What messages do consumers currently perceive and what expectations do they have regarding sustainability?

Authors: Luise Knauber *, Luis Müller*, Robert Luer, Wolfgang Lentz

Consumers are placing more emphasis on product sustainability, thus horticultural companies are challenged in their sustainability communication. We therefore conducted a study to investigate which aspects of the horticultural industry's current sustainability communication are perceived by consumers and if these correspond to the aspects consumers consider to be particularly important. In 2021, an online survey was conducted with 114 participants from Germany. All three dimensions of sustainability (ecology, economy, social) were examined with 5 aspects per dimension. Sustainability topics are hardly perceived by consumers. The ecological dimension outweighs the perception of the social dimension, which is more noticeable than the economic dimension. This hierarchy also remains when analysing single sustainability aspects. Across dimensions no aspect can attract medium or stronger attention. This already indicates a communication deficit. Within the ecological dimension, the topics of biodiversity and waste production stand out slightly. In the social dimension consumer health and safety are noticed most. Regarding the preferences of the respondents, ecological and social aspects are still central while economic aspects are hardly relevant. Moreover, the horticultural food sector shows higher values of perception and preferences than the non-food sector. In order to investigate whether the communicated sustainability topics correspond to the preferred ones, their individual relevance and perception was compared, resulting in the following hypothesis: The importance of sustainability aspects exceeds their perception, with the difference being smallest for economic aspects. Due to the low perception of the horticultural industry's sustainability communication, further studies should focus on whether the topics, the intensity or the current way of communication is crucial. Furthermore, the question arises to what extent individual horticultural companies can reach consumers at all, since direct contact is limited by indirect distribution channels. Also, it should be further determined how much consumers are interested in the sustainability of horticulture.