Clash of beliefs: 'I want to be green but what about the Christmas tree?'

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this study was to understand the role of a sustainable lifestyle for self-declared green consumers during Christmas. While such consumers tend to behave sustainably in their everyday lives, the researchers were interested in finding out how this might change in a specific setting, in this case Christmas, which is commonly associated with consumerism in the Western world. Furthermore, the thesis authors compared green consumers from England and Sweden due to current developments regarding sustainable matters. To answer the research question, the thesis used qualitative semi-structured interviews. The data results of 19 interviews, 13 with Swedes and 6 with British respondents, showed that the majority of all respondents tries to stick to their sustainable lifestyles during Christmas, though Christmas traditions are often seen as more important and thus are used as an excuse for occurring inconsistencies with regard to sustainable actions. The study further illustrated that green consumers can be assumed to have an internal dialogue between their green identity and their Christmas identity. They use these different types of identities, including various underlying identity facets, to alternate between, depending on the respective setting. The inconsistencies that consequently occur in the consumers behavior are further influenced by internal and social dilemmas, which finally decide on a neutralization strategy that the consumer adopts in order to deal with the inconsistencies in his/her identity. The findings can help practitioners to better understand and serve their customers, in this case Millennials, as well as it can contribute to sustainable developments. Moreover, this thesis can serve as a foundation for future research within social sciences.