Foodservice companies’ environmental orientation: young consumers’ emotional responses

This study investigates the perceptions of consumers, as key stakeholders, on a fast-food company’s environmental sustainability initiatives through an integrated perspective based on psychological aspects like personality traits and subjective well-being. Based on a qualitative approach combining content, thematic and sentiment analyses of interview data, the findings demonstrate that sustainability evaluations are not uniform reactions to corporate communication but are strongly shaped by personality traits and subjective well-being. Two overarching themes emerge: 1) trust in company’s environmental communication, as a function of psychological disposition, and 2) affective reception and cognitive engagement of sustainability information. Positive sentiment is primarily associated with higher well-being and traits such as agreeableness, conscientiousness and extraversion, leading to affective, trust-based interpretations that provide moral reassurance. In contrast, neuroticism and lower well-being are linked to skepticism and greenwashing perceptions. Consumers high in openness exhibit reflective and conditional trust, frequently expressing mixed sentiment through critical engagement. Based on these patterns, five consumer profiles are identified, ranging from trust-based moral supporters and affective optimists to reflective conditional supporters, disillusioned skeptics, and ambivalent evaluators. These represent an original contribution of the study to the literature. In addition, the study extends the limited literature on the role of personality traits in shaping consumers’ perceptions of corporate social responsibility by integrating the dimension of subjective well-being in relation to companies’ environmental orientation, while also employing innovative, novel research methods. Practical implications are also discussed.