Sustainability communication on social media in the last decade: A review of research perspectives from Asia

1. Introduction

Globally, there is a growing awareness about, the imminent catastrophe due to environmental degradation as well as the steps necessary to safeguard ecology (Crapa et al., 2023; Camilleri, 2017). Issues such as extreme weather conditions (Chen et al., 2023), extinction of species (Sousa et al., 2022), imbalance in biodiversity (Correia et al., 2023) and increased greenhouse gas emissions (Higueras‐Castillo et al., 2024) are of serious concern. A societal transformation is required to counter the environmental damage and to achieve sustainable development goals. While it is true that macro-level changes such as socio-political, technological, and economic are required; a difference can also be made by undertaking micro-level change in the form of behavior interventions (Stieglitz et al., 2023) on people who consume materials and energy every day.

The UN Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development aims towards accomplishment of a balanced economic, social and environmental development. The United Nations Brundtland Commission (1987) defined sustainability as meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Sustainability is a buzzword today, subsumimg other often used terms such as triple bottom line, sustainable development, green business, corporate citizenship and corporate social responsibility (Kumar & Christodoulopoulou, 2014; Reilly & Larya, 2018).

Media, communication, and framing of messages have the potential to impact values and lead to behavioral changes (Evans et al., 2022; Mobeen et al., 2022). This is true for marketing messages that are often blamed for pushing consumers towards materialism as well as social messages that have helped build awareness from Polio in India to COVID-19, globally. It can be argued that a similar effect of communication can help lead society towards a sustainable future (Braga et al., 2024). While communication by itself may be insufficient in causing behavioral change (Siegel et al., 2018), to generate public engagement and initiate policy change, issues like sustainability need to be communicated in the right manner (Swenson & Olsen, 2017). Evidence suggests a positive correlation between positive messages on media and pro-environmental behavior (PEB) (Agarwal et al., 2024; Yang et al., 2020).

Sustainability communication originates from environmental communication (Fischer et al. 2016). Sustainability communication draws from a broad field of different scientific disciplines such as psychology, sociology, media theory, and communication theory. It comprises themes related to climate, energy, consumption, conservation, and corporate sustainability communication (Voci & Matthias Karmasin, 2023; Sheehy & Farneti, 2021). Sustainability communication by organizations has increased owing to the growing stakeholder demands; in the last decade, companies have become more invested in being vocal and visible about their pro-environment stance (Bhardwaj et al., 2023).

Green marketing communication has emerged as one of the leading ways in which corporates present their stance on sustainability as this fuels green purchase and proves profitable for them (Correia et al., 2023; Jamal et al., 2021, 2022). Brand or corporate sustainability communication engagement also manifests in the form of sustainability reporting on websites (Stocker et al., 2020) branded content or brand journalism (Swenson & Olsen, 2017), green marketing campaigns (Nadanyiova et al., 2020; Bailey et al., 2018) as well as information campaigns (Tavri, 2019). Organizations today increasingly prefer social media for communicating about sustainability to their stakeholders (Gupta et al., 2021; Camilleri, 2017). Social media characterizes two-way communication as against the traditional media, this accentuates its role in influencing behavioral change (Gupta et al., 2021; Loureiro & Lopes, 2019). The users are also increasingly connecting with their preferred brands on social media to engage with sustainability-related information (Loureiro & Lopes, 2019). Independent social media influencers are engaging with the younger audience (Millennials and Gen Z) in sustainability-related dialogues in fashion, food, and travel (Kapoor et al., 2021, 2022a).

Culture and values play a significant role in how sustainability communication is perceived. A difference is observed between individualistic cultures and collectivist cultures and, the subsequent effect on message response (Yang et al., 2020; Paul et al., 2016). Individualistic cultures such as the West, are driven by self-interest, hence climate-related messages with a threat component work well for behavior change. In comparison, collectivist cultures such as in Asian countries, respond to efficacy-related messages better due to the prominence given to social influence (Han & Cheng, 2020).

Several studies on sustainability, communication of sustainability, and the role played by the media environment in pro-environmental behavior, have emerged from Asia in the past. Researchers have analyzed various facets of media effect, both traditional and new media; media exposure and attention on PEB (Lee & Cho, 2020), media’s influence on causal variables such as effects of attention towards types of environmental content (Yang et al., 2020), message appeal and source of the message (Kapoor et al., 2021), media usage (Huang, 2016), presumed media influence on others (Ho et al., 2014) media dependency (Ho et al., 2014) and media exposure (Lee, 2011). Social media has emerged as an important platform due to its usage among millennials and Gen Z (Yamane & Kaneko, 2021; Han & Cheng, 2020; Xu & Han, 2019).

It can be argued that there is a higher quantum of research from developed economies (Chwialkowska et al., 2020) but studies from non-western countries such as Asia are steadily increasing and adding to the multi-dimensional discourse.

Asian countries collectively are the largest contributors to global emissions (Wahyuningrum et al., 2023), this makes Asia the epicenter of climate change impact. As per a 2021 McKinsey report $4.7 trillion of the Asian GDP is at risk due to climate change-related issues. The data provided by Kantar’s Asia Sustainability Foundational Study 2021 shows that 58% of Asian consumers are personally affected by environmental problems; 53% of Asians have stopped buying products and services that harm the environment and society, highlighting an opportunity for Asians to take the lead in mitigation. It is pertinent to understand how individuals from Asian countries depend on social media to seek information related to sustainability and how this consecutively influences their behavior (Saeed et al., 2019). A scoping review of sustainability communication on social media in Asia, would present a more holistic perspective and help future researchers build on this premise. This scoping review aims to achieve the following goals: To map the landscape of research on sustainability communication on social media in Asia over the past decade. Additionally, utilizing the findings to identify research gaps for further evaluation.

Thus, with a unique focus on sustainability communication on social media, this research article attempts to undertake a comprehensive review of all eligible empirical papers that have been published in the past decade. This study attempts to document the implications of the current research paradigms on sustainability communication on social media and identify the directions for future research. Approval for the study was received from the Doctoral Advisory Committee, Manipal Institute of Management, MAHE on March 10, 2022. This marketing study was exempt from submission to the Institutional Ethics Committee of Manipal Academy of Higher Education, by clause 6 of the circular titled “Project Exemption from Submission to IEC,” issued by the Institutional Ethics Committee on 14/01/2021. Subject to this circular, approval is obtained from the MAHE PhD protocol committee (MAHE/CDS/PHD/2022) dated March 31, 2022.

2. Method

2.3 Selection of studies

The first phase of the search included all keywords that were synonyms for the term sustainability communication which yielded 321 documents. The second phase of the search included all keywords that were synonyms for social media and the different platforms of social media which yielded 17,942 documents. An advanced search strategy was used to combine the two searches and filter articles. The keywords used for the search were (“sustainability communication”, “sustainable communication”, “green communication”, “environmental communication”, “corporate sustainability communication”, “climate change communication”, “pro-environmental communication”, “ecological communication”, “sustainable consumption communication”, “sustainable product communication”, “environment information”, “pro-environment information”, “green consumption communication”, “green advertising”) AND (“social media”, SNS, “social networking sites”, “Twitter”, “Facebook”, “Instagram”, “YouTube”, “WhatsApp”).

The search yielded 32 documents. Two authors reviewed the studies independently, disagreements on selection were resolved after mutual discussion. The full text of these articles was assessed and evaluated against the eligibility criteria. Studies focusing on areas unrelated to the research objectives, such as disaster response, disaster literacy, and rumor detection, were further eliminated. The final list had 19 research studies that met the eligibility criteria and were included in the review. The flow diagram of the study selection process is presented in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Flow diagram of study selection.

2.4 Data extraction

An in-depth content analysis was performed to examine the literature. Data from the 19 papers was extracted and entered on a pre-determined data extraction sheet. Study particulars recorded include author name, year of publication, country, study objectives, study design, key findings, and directions for future research. Figure 2 presents the types of research designs adopted in the reviewed papers. There are 10 quantitative studies, 7 qualitative studies, and two mixed method studies. Figure 3 exhibits a network graph of the keywords used in the included articles.

Figure 2. Types of research design.

Figure 3. Network graph of keywords.

The summary of articles included in the study is presented in Table 1.

Table 1. Summary of articles included in the study.

Si No.	Author & Year	Country	Objectives of the study	Study Design	Findings of the study	Directions for future research
1	Kwon et al., 2023	-	To identify the current trend in green advertising and investigate the prevalence of misleading strategies in green advertising practice in terms of execution context and claim context.	Quantitative Content Analysis	Increasing environmental concerns among consumers have led to additional efforts among corporations to promote their environmental practices. More claims in green advertising on social media were misleading than acceptable. environmental efforts.	Explore different types of social media platforms (e.g., Twitter, YouTube) to provide a more comprehensive understanding of green advertising on social media. Future studies should conduct cross-national content analyses.
2	Rosenthal, 2022	Singapore	To investigate the correlation between perceived personal experience of climate change and different information sources (traditional & social media, interpersonal & institutional sources).	Survey	Perceived personal experience of climate change was associated with the use of traditional media social media & interpersonal sources but not institutional sources.	Not mentioned
3	Noviyanti et al., 2022	Indonesia	To analyze the use of Instagram for environmental communication of social cause.	Qualitative Content Analysis	Verbal and visual campaigns on Instagram proved effective in sharing environmental knowledge. Collaborations are done via action-oriented hashtags.	An empirical study to examine audience awareness and behavioral change post-exposure to social media sustainability-related campaigns.
4	Briandana & Mohamad Saleh, 2022	Indonesia	To analyze environmental communication strategies on social media used by environmental NGOs	In-depth interviews	The use of social media (Instagram and Facebook) proved effective in delivering clear messages for social influence.	Use quantitative approaches such as surveys for better feedback on campaign efficiency.
5	Kapoor et al., 2022b	India	To investigate the effectiveness of sustainability messages by green influencers in affecting purchase intention for sustainable products.	Experiment	Sustainability messages by green influencers that have a concrete appeal rather than an abstract appeal are more efficacious as a determinant of the actual behavior among social media users.	Due to the differences in engagement on different social media platforms, it is necessary to assess platform characteristics to understand the efficiency of sustainability messages posted by influencers on social media.
6	Yang, 2022	China	To examine the role of non-English user-generated content on social media, in climate change discussion.	Online Ethnography	Social media promotes participatory culture in the form of citizen science communicators and facilitates audience empowerment.	Not mentioned
7	Chai et al., 2022	Malaysia	To investigate the awareness of university students towards environmental information presented online including types and issue presentation.	Online surveys & in-depth interviews	A modest fit was found between the awareness of students and environmental communication on social media. Visual communication was found to be most effective; Facebook and YouTube were identified as high-exposure platforms.	Green practices among university students to be assessed.
8	Li et al., 2022	China	To examine green advertising on social media and the influence of celebrities in the promotion of sustainability.	Experiment	Consumers’ perception of both brand and celebrity altruism is higher when social media advertisement is organic rather than sponsored.	Use online field experiments to directly observe the social media users’ actual behavior. Can replicate the experiment on other social media platforms.
9	Wei et al., 2021	China	To investigate the impact of an organization’s CSR communication through social media on consumer loyalty with e-WOM as the mediator.	Survey	A direct relationship is seen between CSR communication on social media and loyalty with e-WOM as a potential mediator.	Include consumers’ PEB and organizational environmental commitment in the framework to better perceive consumer behavior.
10	Ch et al., 2021	Indonesia	To examine the role of green marketing on social media in shaping green purchase behavior.	Survey	Significant influence of eco-labeling and green advertising on the decision to purchase green products found.	Focus on a bigger sample from non-metropolitan cities and study respondents with limited knowledge of green products, to get different perspectives.
11	Wang et al., 2021	China, Singapore & South Korea	To analyze the shipping industry’s sustainability communications on social media-Twitter	Content Analysis	There is a direct relationship between CSR communication on social media and consumer loyalty with e-WOM as a potential mediator.	To examine if the emotional appeal used in organizational CSR communication on social media generates brand equity.
12	León et al., 2021	Kuwait	To explore strategies used by advocacy institutions to communicate climate change on social media.	Semi-structured Interviews	Strategies focus more on sender–receiver models of communication rather than looking at social media as virtual meeting spaces for discussion on the environment.	Possible to analyze the effectiveness of the mentioned strategies in promoting citizen participation in climate change discussion.
13	Cao et al., 2021	China	To examine if the interactive nature of social media influences green purchase.	Survey	Green products advertised through highly social advertisements are preferred. Consumers’ green involvement acts as a moderator.	Investigate audience perceptions of green ads in diverse media environments. Compare consumer purchase intentions across varied green products.
14	Kong et al., 2020	South Korea	To understand the interconnection of sustainability communication and e-WOM and purchase intentions (South Korea and Germany).	Experiment	Sustainability advertising on social media is most effective (in terms of its influence on e-WOM and purchase intention) for non-luxury brands and among consumers who have a higher awareness of sustainability.	To explore the influence of cognition and its effect on the processing of sustainability communication.
15	Chen, 2020	China	To understand the factors motivating the sharing of environmental information in the Chinese context.	Survey	Entertainment, presentation of oneself, and having the opportunity to interact with others have a positive influence on information sharing. Awareness of the consequences also has an impact.	Demographic differences can be considered (due to their influence on PEB & social media usage) to create more effective communication strategies.
16	Shafqat & Fong, 2020	Malaysia	To explore the role of climate change communication by environmental NGOs in fostering PEB.	Content analysis and expert interviews	The information-oriented posts and posts on organizational events elicited higher engagement compared to community-building posts.	Explore both drivers and barriers to PEB in Malaysia. Also understand the varied levels of audience engagement with sustainability-related content, online.
17	Luo et al., 2020	China	To analyze the effect of skepticism towards social media green advertising on information utility and purchase intention.	Survey	Skepticism towards green advertising indirectly affects green purchase intention by mediating the perception of information utility.	Undertake cross-cultural research. Also, explore the effect of eco-labeling on green purchase behavior.
18	Sulistyawati et al., 2019	Indonesia	To explore the utility of social media (Facebook and Instagram) and websites to increase environmental awareness among teenagers.	Content Analysis	Instagram emerged as the preferred platform for climate change-related information sharing among teenagers.	Not mentioned
19	Jiang et al., 2018	China	To examine the key influencing factors behind climate change discussions by analyzing user-generated content (UGC) on social media.	Content Analysis	The UGC focus is more on human/societal issues than climate change as a natural phenomenon. Higher engagement is seen for posts on specific subjects, usage of scientific terms, and posts by people with a higher number of followers.	Reduction of subjectivity by using more automated topic modeling approaches.

3. Data analysis

The researchers conducted a detailed analysis of the selected 19 studies, with careful deliberation over each of the study particulars mentioned in Table 1. To provide a coherent structure to the results, the insights were categorized into the following segments: theoretical frameworks, the direction of sustainability communication on social media in Asia, utility of social media in sustainability communication, and the prominent themes of sustainability communication on social media in Asia.

4. Results

5. Discussion

The scoping review analyzed empirical literature on sustainability communication on social media from Asia. The purpose was to identify the direction of sustainability communication on social media in the last decade, in Asian countries. In total, 19 original research studies that met the eligibility criteria were included in this review. The methods adopted range from quantitative (n=10), qualitative (n=7), and mixed methods (n=2). Newer methods such as online ethnography point towards the growing prominence of social media-centric research (Yang, 2022). The year range and inclusion criteria used in this study enabled the researchers to summarize the most recent findings of prevalent Asian studies on sustainability communication on social media. The theoretical frameworks of the norm activation model, value belief norm theory, uses and gratification theory and the theory of planned behavior was used in a few studies to uncover insights and guide further research (Ch et al., 2021; Wei et al., 2021; Chen, 2020).

Broadly, the research findings of these empirical studies reveal how sustainability communication is employed by different players such as companies, causes, and the public; and how social media is used to communicate and impact behavioral change. Sustainability communication on social media in Asia is multi-directional and presents specific overarching themes.

Five prominent themes that emerged during the analysis are ‘green marketing, ‘greenwashing/skepticism towards green marketing’, ‘social media as a platform for active engagement’, ‘value of user-generated content on social media, and ‘social media for social influence/as an awareness agent’. The first theme indicates an increased interest in green marketing and subsequent green purchases (Li et al., 2022; Kapoor et al., 2022b; Ch et al., 2021). There appears to be a symbiotic relationship between the quantum of green advertisements and other forms of sustainability communication used by brands, and the growing demand for products and services that are perceived as green by consumers (Cao et al., 2021; Luo et al., 2020). The finding is in line with studies that present green advertisement as a powerful tool to increase environmentally responsible action such as green purchases (Nadanyiova et al., 2020; Bailey et al., 2018). Studies on brand-generated sustainability communication focussed on customer loyalty, e-WOM, brand equity, and purchase intent (Kong et al., 2020; Wei, et al., 2021). Wei et al. (2021) has to come before Kong et al. (2020).

Misleading claims in green advertising, consumer skepticism, and impact on purchase intent are the other directions of brand sustainability communication (Kwon et al., 2023; Luo et al., 2020) and the second dominant theme. Interestingly, the study by Kwon et al. (2023) found that even though the number of misleading green claims by brands has increased in the past few years, the direct effect of greenwashing skepticism on purchase was not discernible. This finding contrasts with a few previous studies that found a negative impact of greenwashing on purchase intention (Braga et al., 2019; Akturan, 2018).

The third theme presents social media as a platform for active engagement. Study findings on cause-generated sustainability communication emphasize the scope of social media especially Instagram and Facebook as effective platforms for community collaboration and to deliver campaigns for social change (Briandana & Mohamad Saleh, 2022; Noviyanti et al., 2022; León et al., 2021; Shafqat & Fong, 2020). Studies on environmental awareness among youth present visual campaigns on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube as high-exposure platforms for climate change information (Chai et al., 2022; Sulistyawati et al., 2019). The fourth theme intersects with studies on user-generated sustainability communication indicating that the public is motivated by both self-presentation as well as altruistic reasons, to participate in sustainability-related discussions (Chen, 2020; Jiang et al., 2018). The users discuss scientific and grassroots climate-related topics, with social media facilitating a participatory culture (Yang, 2022). Testimonials on social media as a means of user-generated content are found to be more credible and effective in developing awareness as well as participation in sustainability and CSR initiatives (Loureiro & Lopes, 2019).

The final theme that emerged highlights social media as an agent of change. Different studies have found communication of sustainability performing a key role in shaping the pro-environmental decisions of the consumers and community (Nadanyiova et al., 2020; Bailey et al., 2018), with media, especially social media acting as the catalyst (Yamane & Kaneko, 2021; Han & Cheng, 2020; Xu & Han, 2019).

Some notable points that emerged from the scoping review needs added emphasis. The role of social media influencers is being deliberated by industry professionals and researchers. In sustainability communications, green influencers and their content has the potential to be a persuasive voice of change. The pro-environmental behavior in the reviewed studies can be grouped into two main types, green purchase behavior that includes buying products that are labelled as green, and conservation behaviour such as knowledge-sharing, cause awareness and working toward protection of the environment. Sustainability communication on social media influences both the categories of PEB among Asian respondents. The influence of social media on youth or Gen Z is overarching and is true for communication of sustainability. Visual communication is seen as more effective than textual communication and it can be deduced that the effect of social media is platform agnostic; currently Instagram and YouTube take precedence, in the future any other visual-first medium may have the ability to influence pro-environmental behaviour. Social media with its participatory culture, is also evolving as an important forum for climate change discussion for both scientific and non-scientific communities, for environmentalists as well as skeptics in Asia.

6. Limitations and Conclusion

The review has its limitations. Only English-language articles were considered, and the scope was restricted to research in Asia – both researchers and respondents from Asia. Future research can look at perspectives in non-English articles; also, it would be interesting to consider contributions from African and South American researchers to counterpoise American and European narratives. Further, a study could also be done on Asian researchers studying non-Asian respondents. Another limitation is that only Scopus was considered for the scoping review with the rationale that it is a comprehensive database for social science journals, however, future research can look at other databases such as JSTOR to expand the scope of the review.

The findings of the scoping review suggest that sustainability communication on social media has substantial potential to improve the environmental awareness of the public and promote actual pro-environmental behavior in the two significant fields of green and conservation behavior. The study findings can be useful for researchers as it lists the current focus areas. The unique contribution of the paper is its emphasis on the Asian research perspectives on sustainability communication on social media which is evolving; with a growing understanding of its scope, this area of research will move from a nascent stage to maturity. Moreover, with social media providing newer avenues to increase reach among newer audiences, future researchers can conduct reviews to scope the maturing levels of sustainability communication on social media. The study provides a holistic view of the recent trends and possible future directions for sustainability communication on social media. The insights presented here can help in undertaking a systematic review of the literature on sustainability communication on social media in the future.

Ethical consideration

This marketing study was exempt from submission to the Institutional Ethics Committee of Manipal Academy of Higher Education, by clause 6 of the circular titled “Project Exemption from Submission to IEC,” issued by the Institutional Ethics Committee on 14/01/2021. Subject to this circular, approval is obtained from the MAHE PhD protocol committee (MAHE/CDS/PHD/2022) dated March 31, 2022.

Corresponding author: Dr. Smitha Nayak (smithanayak.v@manipal.edu).