Results

“Research shows that showing people research doesn’t work,” John Sterman (Tan, 2018)

It is famously difficult to convince humans of anything using facts, logic, and sound argumentation. However, at the same time, humans are fallible to manipulation. This section will focus on the facts, while the next section (Discussion) will attempt to operationalize some of the findings.

Survey and Data Analysis Overview

• A survey of Taiwanese college students, covering attitudes towards shopping, saving, investing, economy, nature, sustainability, and AI.
• The survey was open from October 13th 2023 to May 31 2025
• 3000 cards with a QR code printed out
• Distribution conducted at 21 universities handing out the cards
• 1644 people started the survey, and 658 quit
• 986 people completed the whole survey
• Data after filtering 675 people aged 18-29 GenZ; Taiwanese; current students; respondents studying in BA (large majority), MA (small minority) or PhD level (very few).
• 36 likert fields, 5-point scale, used for clustering the students into 3 personas with K-means clustering-
• 14 product features multiple-choice used for Kmodes clustering
• 4 choice experiments
• 2 option ranking questions
• 10 qualitative text fields used to enrich the personas
• K-Means clustering was used on quantitative survey data to build similarity-based personas. K-Means is akin to vector distances for similarity, used in large language models (LLMs), word embeddings, and deep learning.

Quotes from the Survey

Even though most of the survey questions were numeric, the respondents did have the opportunity to write more in open-ended questions. Here are some selected quotes:

“I worry whether info from AI is trustworthy, whether politics or business bend it, and whether my own data steers the algorithm and reshapes what I see.”, anonymous student at National Taiwan University

“Right now I care most about how carbon emissions could raise future costs for companies, so when I invest I look at whether their carbon liabilities outweigh their carbon assets.”, anonymous student at Taichung Feng Chia University

“People will only focus on sustainability if they can afford to. When a family’s budget is tight, putting food on the table beats caring about the planet.” anonymous student at Tainan National Cheng Kung University.

“When we were kids, Dad made us bring a shopping bag and reuse it. Even if it got dirty, we could turn it into a trash bag.”, anonymous student at Taoyuan Ming Chuan University.

“Take our school as an example. We boast about being the top green university in the country and we run plenty of green research projects, yet students’ eco-awareness has not really improved. Even with constant green messaging, the cafeterias are still flooded with ‘eco’ chopsticks and plastic spoons.”, anonymous student at National Pingtung University of Science and Technology (NPUST)

“Every purchase is a vote for our own future. College students can keep choosing green brands and changing their habits. Paying attention to these issues puts pressure on companies and pushes them toward cleaner production.”, anonymous student at Fu Jen Catholic University (FJU)

“AI can handle the time-consuming math and analysis, but I can only use it effectively if I have baseline knowledge of what I am asking.”, anonymous student at National Taiwan University (NTU)

“If eco-friendly products use fewer materials, they ought to be cheaper. No one should strong-arm me into buying something expensive.”, anonymous student at National Chung Hsing University (NCHU)

“Probably eco-education. Taiwan’s education system is lousy in many ways, yet the part that builds environmental awareness in students is actually useful.”, anonymous student at Fu Jen Catholic University (FJU)

“Let’s talk about why people want sustainability, what benefits it brings to the environment, how we can see the results, and how much worse things get if we ignore it.”, anonymous student at Chang Gung University (CGU)

“Your survey is interesting, but in my opinion most Taiwanese citizens will find it hard to fill out. There are specialised terms without explanations. Otherwise it is great. A few typos could be fixed, but you are a foreigner, you are already doing awesome.”, anonymous student at National Dong Hwa University (NDHU)

“You could ask Taiwanese friends to review the survey’s wording. Keep going. Thank you for your bright smile, a smile can advance sustainability. I believe in the power of the spirit.”, anonymous student at National Tsing Hua University (NTHU)

There are many, the above is a sample of the responses.