Green Consumption and Sustainable Practices in E-Commerce: Drivers, Impacts, and Strategies

Dear Colleagues,

The accelerating shift toward environmental sustainability is fundamentally reshaping consumption patterns and business practices in electronic commerce. As digital platforms continue to expand globally, consumers are increasingly integrating environmental considerations into their online purchasing decisions, while firms are under growing pressure to adopt sustainable practices across their e-commerce operations. Green consumption, defined as environmentally conscious purchasing and usage behaviors, has emerged as a critical driver of transformation in digital marketplaces, influencing how value is created, communicated, and delivered. Importantly, this transformation is increasingly mediated by platform architectures, algorithmic decision systems, and data-driven interactions that redefine how sustainable value is generated and experienced in digital environments.

Despite the rising interest in sustainability within e-commerce, significant theoretical and empirical gaps remain. Existing studies often examine green consumption or sustainable practices in isolation, offering limited insight into the complex interplay between consumer motivations, technological enablers, platform dynamics, and organizational strategies. Moreover, digital environments—characterized by information asymmetry, algorithmic recommendations, and cross-border transactions—remain underexplored in shaping sustainable decision-making and behavioral outcomes. Questions also persist regarding the effectiveness of sustainability signals, the role of trust and transparency, and the extent to which e-commerce platforms foster genuine environmental impact versus symbolic compliance. In particular, limited attention has been given to how algorithmic curation, digital nudging, and platform governance mechanisms influence sustainable consumption choices.

This Special Issue aims to advance theory-driven and methodologically rigorous research that explores the drivers, impacts, and strategies associated with green consumption and sustainable practices in e-commerce. It seeks to integrate perspectives from marketing, information systems, sustainability, and consumer behavior to provide a more holistic understanding of how environmental considerations are embedded within digital commerce ecosystems. Beyond prior work, this Special Issue explicitly emphasizes novel theoretical integration at the intersection of sustainability and platform-based digital commerce, while also encouraging methodological advancements such as big data analytics, experimental designs, and AI-driven modeling approaches to capture sustainability dynamics in complex digital environments.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Drivers of green consumption behavior in online and mobile commerce environments;
• Algorithmic recommendations, digital nudging, and personalization for sustainable consumption;
• The role of digital platforms in promoting (or hindering) sustainable consumption;
• The effectiveness of eco-labels, green advertising, and sustainability communication in e-commerce;
• Consumer trust, perceived risk, and greenwashing in online marketplaces;
• Data analytics, artificial intelligence, and personalization for sustainable consumption;
• Sustainable supply chains, logistics, and last-mile delivery in e-commerce;
• Circular economy practices (e.g., reuse, resale, sharing platforms) in digital markets;
• Cross-cultural and cross-border perspectives on green e-commerce behavior;
• Regulatory, ethical, and governance challenges in sustainable e-commerce ecosystems;
• Business model innovation for sustainability in platform-based and omnichannel retailing.

Prof. Dr. Ahmed Hassan Abdou
Dr. Shafique Ur Rehman
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• green consumption
• sustainable e-commerce
• online consumer behavior
• environmental sustainability
• digital platforms
• green marketing
• eco-labels and certifications
• sustainable supply chains
• circular economy
• artificial intelligence in sustainability
• data-driven sustainability
• consumer trust and greenwashing
• sustainable business models
• cross-border e-commerce
• ethical consumption
• environmental awareness
• sustainability strategies
• algorithmic sustainability
• platform governance
• e-commerce analytics