From Forest to Market: Sustainability Signals and Consumer Decision-Making for Amazonian Products

Though sustainability cues are increasingly used in consumer markets, their effectiveness in mobilising consumers to support the forest stewardship of traditional populations remains uncertain. This study examines how different types of sustainability cues influence consumer perceptions and support of forest-based products from the Amazon rainforest. Using an online survey experiment with 991 Brazilian consumers, we test the effects of three labelling approaches, environmental labels, co-creation labels highlighting collaboration with local communities, and traceability QR codes providing product origin information across two product categories (manioc flour and shoes). The results show that all three cues increased perceived sustainability for manioc flour, with the sustainability label producing the strongest effect, and that this increase, in turn, translated into higher intention to buy. None of the cues had a direct effect on intention to buy for shoes, nor did any of these effects hold for shoes. Sustainability cue knowledge or sustainability-based consumer values did not moderate these effects. The findings show that consumers do not respond uniformly to sustainability cues across product categories. From a consumer policy perspective, this underscores the need for communication strategies that improve the clarity, salience, and recognizability of sustainability information in forest-based value chains, particularly for social value claims.