The role of ambiguity and skepticism in the effectiveness of sustainability labeling

Given various “green” communication protocols offered in the marketplace, this paper adds insight on how consumers process sustainability labeling information with scale ratings. Drawing from ambiguity theory and numerosity literature, we conduct two experiments to examine the impact of brand-based sustainability levels and the range of scale magnitude on product evaluations. In general, we find that labels with scale ratings can be effective in influencing consumer attitudes toward the brand. However, the use of moderately high sustainability scores (as opposed to extremely high) and/or a larger scale range (e.g., 1-1,000) increases perceived ambiguity for consumers and reduces the persuasiveness of the information. We also find that the degree of sustainability skepticism moderates these relationships and that consumers who are skeptical toward labeling are more difficult to convince. We provide implications for researchers, managers, and policy makers.