Elsevier

Journal of Cleaner Production

Volume 63, 15 January 2014, Pages 143-151
Journal of Cleaner Production

What affects green consumer behavior in China? A case study from Qingdao

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2013.05.021Get rights and content

Abstract

This study develops a theoretical framework of green consumer behavior to determine the effects of personal influence, knowledge of green consumption, attitudes toward green consumption, internal and external moderators and examines whether these effects differ significantly among purchasing, using and recycling behaviors. Correlation analysis and multiple regression are applied to assess data collected by a questionnaire survey. The results indicate that attitudes are the most significant predictor of purchasing behavior. Using behavior is mainly determined by income, perceived consumer effectiveness and age, while recycling behavior is strongly influenced by using behavior. These findings have policy implications and improve understanding of green consumer behavior in China.

Introduction

Environmental technologies, economic policies, and social initiatives are all important to economic sustainability, but their influence rests on achieving changes in actual consumption patterns and behavior (Peattie, 2010). The notion of green consumption has emerged as a key element in the academic and policy debates regarding the environmental impacts of consumption. The concept of green consumption first became explicit in the 1970s (Peattie, 2010), and many research articles since then have extended it.

Various empirical studies on green consumption have attempted to identify the factors that influence green behavior, including demographics (Diamantopoulos et al., 2003), environmental knowledge, attitudes (Chan, 2001), values (Ramayah et al., 2010), and internal and external moderators (Rylander and Allen, 2001). The research on green consumption has also involved applying established theories and models, most commonly those based on the theory of reasoned action (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980) and the related theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1991). Numerous models attempt to incorporate both internal and external elements, including the model of environmental behavior (Hines et al., 1986), the attitude-behavior-context model (Stern, 2000), the models introduced by Rylander and Allen (2001) and Bagozzi et al. (2002), and especially the model developed by Fishbein and Ajzen (2010). These models help understand the structure of some intentional behaviors.

Although approaches that apply or extend theories like the theory of planned behavior (TPB) are popular in investigating green consumer behavior, several limitations should be taken into consideration. First, the complexity of integrated models makes them difficult to test for green consumer behavior (Davies et al., 2002). Second, some recent empirical literature found that none of the values variables have a significant correlation with actual household electricity conservation (He and Kua, 2013; Kua and Wong, 2012), while subjective norm is generally supposed to be a key variable in the TPB model. The uncertainties that surround previous results make further studies necessary. While a few studies have examined green consumer behavior in developed and developing countries, such research is lacking for China. China has recently followed a track of rapid urbanization and industrialization, and development stage and process could significantly impact the attitudes and behavior of Chinese consumers. Therefore, green consumption in China is of worldwide interest in both policy and scholarly circles. The present study draws on previous research and incorporates internal and external moderators into the model to investigate the impact of the factors that influence green consumer behavior. Moreover, this empirical study does not treat green consumer behavior as an independent category but rather separately analyzes three aspects of such behavior (purchasing, using and recycling). Consequently this study uses a novel approach with potential to produce more precise and reliable results, and to recommend viable policy options for the Chinese government.

This paper is organized as follows: following the introduction in Section 1, Section 2 briefly reviews the literature on green consumer behavior. Section 3 then explains the research design and data collection. The empirical findings are summarized in Sections 4 Data analysis and results, 5 Discussion concludes with policy implications.

Section snippets

Demographics

The segmentation and profiling of green consumers can enable not only businesses, but also environmental organizations and governmental agencies to develop positioning and marketing-mix strategies. Varied geographic, socio-demographic and personality characteristics are employed, with the key profiling variables being socio-demographic (McDonald and Dunbar, 2004). Diamantopoulos et al. (2003) comprehensively reviewed six socio-demographic variables (age, marital status, gender, number of

Research hypotheses and model

Although green consumption is subtly intertwined with social and economic factors (Peattie, 2010), here we assume that it is only tied to environmental issues. Inspired by the work of Zhang et al. (2007) and Liu et al. (2009b), we divide green consumer behavior into three forms according to stage of the consumption process, namely purchasing, using and recycling. The framework (Fig. 1) distills the essence of the model of Rylander and Allen (2001) to explain the motivation for green consumer

Data analysis and results

Before testing the model, reliability tests were conducted on each factor (Table 2). Results show that reliability statistics values vary from 0.63 to 0.82, and thus lie within both the “substantial” (0.61–0.80) and the stricter “almost perfect” (0.81–1.0) levels (Landis and Koch, 1977). Therefore, the questionnaire has high reliability.

Discussion

Prior to the analysis of empirical findings, some detailed description about green consumer behavior should be noted. In our study, using behavior consists of using water, plastic bags and disposable tableware. “Use of water” means that reuse water for such activities as washing vegetables, house cleaning and gardening. To some extent, it also means water saving (less use). But we should admit that using household appliances needs to be considered in the future research as it can convey more

Conclusion

An integrated model was developed for exploring green consumer behavior in China, and the model analyzed the relationships among personal influence, attitudes, internal and external moderators, and behavior. Correlation analysis and multiple linear regression were applied to determine the influence factors on green consumer behavior regarding purchasing, using and recycling. The result showed differences between three behaviors with regard to demographic and psychological variables.

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