Kemper, JASpotswood, FWhite, Samantha2023-11-282023-10-312024-01-012023-10-060301-479737918237 (pubmed)https://hdl.handle.net/10182/16625Despite consumer concern for sustainability, avoiding plastic packaging, particularly in food shopping, is difficult due to its pervasiveness and usefulness. Yet achieving changes in consumer behaviour is an important part of environmental management approaches towards a circular economy and plastic reduction. This research explores how everyday food shopping practices might adapt and evolve to become more sustainable through consumers avoiding, reducing, or replacing plastic packaging in their grocery shopping. This qualitative research, based on eighteen semi-structured interviews with sustainably-oriented consumers, finds that plastic-free shopping practices are challenging for even committed practitioners. However, we illuminate four mechanisms representing ‘bright spots’ (i.e., points of optimism) that offer specific opportunities for environmental management. We define these as destabilisation, envisioning, emotional connection and adaptation. Destabilisation and envisioning help with recruitment of practitioners to plastic-free shopping, and emotional connection and adaptation help support practitioner loyalty and commitment. Further, consumer reflexivity and habituated sustainable-orientation supports practice recruitment, stabilisation and transition. We discuss the implications of our findings for environmental management approaches to ‘behaviour change’, focusing on the role of policy-makers, social marketers, retailers, and manufacturers in fostering competitive, stable plastic-free grocery shopping.11 pagesPrint-Electronicen© 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.Choice BehaviorQualitative ResearchProduct PackagingFoodConsumer BehaviorChoice BehaviorQualitative ResearchProduct PackagingFoodConsumer BehaviorJournal Article10.1016/j.jenvman.2023.1192901095-8630ANZSRC::300604 Food packaging, preservation and processingANZSRC::350401 Food and hospitality servicesANZSRC::350499 Commercial services not elsewhere classifiedANZSRC::401609 Polymers and plasticsANZSRC::350601 Consumer behaviourANZSRC::350606 Marketing research methodologyhttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Attribution