【公开学术报告】The Value of Having Been Used Before

The Value of Having Been Used Before: Heightened Consumer Value Perceptions of Products Made from Recycled Materials

Guest Speaker:    Dr. Yuhang (Edward) LAI (Virginia Tech)

Date & Time:       9:30-11:00 (Beijing Time), Tue. 27^th, Sept. 2022

Zoom Meeting:   872 4987 6247（Password: 442356）

Click Link:           https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87249876247

ABSTRACT

The last few decades have seen an explosion in population growth. Along with this growth we have witnessed an increase in demand for products and we are also increasingly demanding more from our environment. To assuage the impact on the environment, it is imperative that we make better use of our resources and reassess how we construe a product’s lifecycle. Instead of a linear perspective, which typically follows a product’s lifecycle from mining of raw materials to manufacturing, but then stops when products are trashed, it is critical that we expand our perspective to the entire lifecycle of products, from not just manufacturing to usage, but also from usage to creation of new products through recycling. In this research, we focus on consumers’ perceptions, evaluations, and usage of products made from recycled materials. Studying both market exchange and non-market contexts, we show that while people are willing to pay more for and are more likely to buy products made with recycled materials, they use these products more judiciously. Although seemingly paradoxical, these effects occur because of consumer valuation: consumers value products made from recycled materials more than comparable regular products. We also document where the value increments emerge from.

Keywords: recycling, value, transformation, product usage, sustainability