Leveraging social media to examine sustainability communication of home appliance brands

Historically, the home appliance industry has significantly impacted the environment and human welfare. Consumers today know the consequences of their consumption habits and are willing to make a change. An essential influencer in this regard is social media. This study uses grounded theory to explore sustainability communication by home appliance brands on social media. The purpose of the study is to undertake empirical research to develop an understanding of the phenomenon of sustainability communication. We employed inductive content analysis to study 13 home appliance brands. The unit of analysis is social media posts over three years, from 2020 to 2023. Social media analytics methods of topic modelling, sentiment analysis, and analysis of likes are used. The study's findings indicate a substantial amount of communication focused on sustainability. There is significantly more emphasis on social sustainability than environmental sustainability. We find that people evaluate sustainability communication more positively than non-sustainability communication. Nine sub-topics are identified through topic modelling. Academic literature and previous studies firmly establish the importance of environment, green, and energy efficiency in sustainability communication. Yet, this study presents a unique perspective by uncovering a broad range of topics. The study contributes to the existing literature by proposing the concept of Responsible Sustainable Consumer Communication (RSCC). The study offers industry professionals and researchers a valuable resource to deepen their understanding of sustainability communication as it exists today and its effects.