Special Issue of the International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management.
Ethical Consumption and Climate Change in Hospitality and Tourism: Challenges, Solutions, and Prospects
Guest Editors: Taheri B., Olya H., & Batat W.
Deadline: 1 October 2022
Following the Glasgow COP26 climate change summit, nations committed themselves to further speed up their decarbonization strategies, but also provide a new improved framework for a global carbon market (The Economist, 2021). Some destinations have already accelerated their commitment to working with tourism and hospitality industry and communities to develop a long-lasting sustainable destination. Meanwhile, the field of sustainable consumption within climate change domain has been developing intensively in recent years in hospitality and tourism industry (e.g., Sheedy et al., 2020; Taheri and Rahimi, 2019; Wells et al., 2006). Here, the climate crisis changes our world in various ways including: seasonality issues, increases of events disruption, forced migrations, food and beverage insecurity, disease and death (Olya, 2019; Odou and Schill, 2020). Hospitality and tourism industry is among main contributors to green gas emissions; however, it is not clear how the industry will be affected under different scenarios of climate change. As hospitality and tourism is one of the most vulnerable industries to crises, thus, it is an absolute need to understand how key actor groups and stakeholders (e.g., consumers of hospitality industry) can prepare, respond to, mitigate and adapt polices against climate change.
Due to the steadily evolving concept of global climate change and its influence on consumptions and lifestyles, sustainable consumer behavior has not been fully operationalized in practice, particularly in hospitality and tourism industry. Here, ethically minded and ecologically conscious consumers are changing and adapting their consumption patterns in hospitality and tourism industry with superior interest for sustainable consumption practices such as: promotion of environmentally friendly packaging, building and supporting a self-sustaining communities, generating socially responsible events, concerns about the cycle of wine-making, staying at green hotels, chagrining their food consumption pattern (e.g., veganism), food waste issues, conscious travel and hospitality patterns, avoiding travel with airplane in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and save the world from global climate crises (e.g., Batat, 2021a, 2021b; Okumus et al., 2020; Sudbury-Riley and Kohlbacher, 2016; Olya and Taheri, 2021; Taheri and Thompson, 2020).
Furthermore, several authors have proposed definitions of ethical consumer behaviors as a conscious and deliberate decision to make consumption choices based on personal beliefs, values and purchasing behavior that considers environmental issues (e.g., climate crisis) related the production and distribution of goods and services within hospitality and tourism industry (e.g., Olya et al., 2019a). To this end, directing the ethical consumption toward climate change needs further theoretical and practical developments (Olya et al., 2019b). We acknowledged that the process of stimulating the awareness, attitude, and behavioral intentions of consumers about adaptive/mitigative initiatives in hospitality industry against climate crisis is a long journey (Olya and Altinay, 2016). Hence, a multidisciplinary scientific approach is necessary to propose innovative, valuable, and timely solutions to such a complex problem at local and global scales, particularly in the climate crisis (Sheedy et al., 2020) within hospitality and tourism industry.
To this end, this special issue attempts to improve our readership’s understanding of climate change and trends of sustainable consumption as well as developing innovative solutions to stimulate attitudinal and behavioral changes against climate change in the hospitality and tourism industry. We also encourage authors to challenge existing sustainable consumptions theories and practices in relation to consumers’ perceptions of climate change and identify new and/or alternative theoretical perspectives for a better understanding of climate crises in the hospitality context. Finally, we encourage studies that use a range of innovative methodologies including qualitative (e.g., ethnography, case studies), quantitative (e.g., experimental approaches, hierarchical linear modeling) and mixed methods.
Potential topics include, but are not limited to:
– Nature-based solutions to stimulate behavioral changes toward climate crisis
– Critical consumer solutions theories and perspectives in relation to climate change
– Ethically minded consumer behavior in relation to climate crisis
– Game theory to change behaviors to combat climate change
– Decoding intention-behavior gaps toward practices against climate crisis
– Value co-creation strategies for sustainable consumption within climate crisis
– Technological innovations and tech-celebrations to tackle climate crises
Measuring impacts of climate changes related interventions on society
– Innovative business initiative to reduce carbon footprint to mitigate the impacts of climate change
– Carbon footprint analysis
– Willingness to accept climate change strategies
– Nudging sustainability
– Young people sustainable behaviors
– Resilience in responses to climate crisis
– Smart product-service design for climate change
– Recycling intention as climate change mitigation strategies
– Ecological marketing and green marketing within climate crisis domain
– Gamification through innovative marketing practices
– Emergency management in response to global climate crisis
– Theory of change, system thinking and climate change
– Circular Economy and climate change
– Shift from luxury to premium hospitality
– Methodological advancement in ethical consumption and climate change in hospitality and tourism
Submission Procedure
Prospective authors are strongly encouraged to contact the guest editors regarding potential topics of interest or any questions/suggestions regarding the special issue.
Abstracts (up to 750 words, following the IJCHM structured abstract) can be submitted directly to the guest editors via email by March 31st 2022. Abstracts must be concise and to the point with appropriate references. The guest editors will provide feedback on each submitted abstract.
Full papers must be submitted by October 1st 2022 through ScholarOne Manuscripts, the online submission and peer review system. Please select the correct issue to submit to: Ethical consumption and Climate Change.
See the full CfP here.
