Sustainable packaged food and beverage consumption transition in Indonesia: Persuasive communication to affect consumer behavior

•Sustainable consumption transition is an important issue due to the complexity of providing solutions to the increasing volume of waste in landfills.•Integrating ecological modernization theory, transition management theory and persuasive communication is to address sustainable consumption transition.•This study proposed a valid set of four aspects and fourteen criteria using Delphi method.•Using fuzzy set theory and decision making trial and evaluation together is to handle the qualitative information and interrelationships among the attributes.•This study found that persuasive communication is a main attribute to convincing, educating and augmenting the knowledge, attitude and behavior of consumers to improve the transition to sustainable consumption. Sustainable consumption transition in relation to consumers’ environmental behavior and manufacturers’ governance of sustainability and persuasive communication has not been adequately addressed by prior studies. This study presents theory on ecological modernization, transition management and persuasive communication to address sustainable consumption transition. This study proposes a valid set of four aspects and fourteen criteria using the Delphi method. The valid attributes are analyzed using fuzzy set theory and decision-making trial and evaluation together to handle the qualitative information and interrelationships among the attributes. This procedure converts qualitative information into numerical data to create a diagram showing the interrelationships among the attributes. This study found that persuasive communication is the most effective factor in convincing consumers to transition to sustainable consumption. Other key factors for this transition include educating consumers, augmenting their knowledge and altering their attitudes toward sustainable consumption. Being environmentally friendly, product labeling, offering an authenticity argument, and reusing and recycling products are the solutions found in this study.