Pro-ecological behavior of consumers on the food market is conditioned by many factors, among which the literature on the subject particularly indicates, is high environmental awareness. Among other factors, the influence of social groups is also emphasized, in relation to young consumers; these are mainly peers and friends, which was confirmed by the authors’ research. The aim of the research was to identify the role of ecological awareness and influence on the food purchasing habits of young consumers in shaping their pro-ecological behavior. Based on the literature on the subject, structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze the empirical material, reducing the number of dimensions through the use of factor analysis. Analyzing the collected material, the authors proposed three latent variables—ecological awareness (EA), impact on food preferences (IFP), and ecological behavior (EB). Hidden variables were defined by explicit variables, and the whole was characterized in the light of the literature. The research results indicated that there are significant correlations between all latent variables, however the strongest one could be observed between EA and EB. This proves that the ecological behavior of young consumers is strongly determined by their environmental awareness.
The subject literature around the world puts a strong emphasis on the discrepancy between the positive attitude towards the idea of sustainability and consumer behaviour. These issues are the subject matter of this paper, which aims at both the identification and evaluation of selected aspects of knowledge, attitudes and eco-friendly behaviour of consumers connected with their choice of foods. The authors made an attempt of answering the question, to what extent do the level of knowledge and the declared eco-friendly attitudes have an impact on specific purchasing decisions. In the empirical observations, the conceptual model of the effects of the environment (knowledge, attitude, behaviour) on the customers' ecological awareness was used. The analysis conducted on the basis of this model indicated that stimulating the demand for ecological products is implemented mainly by the processes of raising awareness, which leads to expanding the consumers’ knowledge concerning ecological farming and eco-friendly foods. In such a way the consumer awareness is built, especially by educational campaigns and promoting/endorsing the ecological foods targeted at young consumers.
Biogas production within cooperatives and energy clusters that include both food businesses and biogas plants seems to be a good way to both improve financial health and increase energy self-sufficiency. The paper assesses the financial health of more than 2100 food businesses operating during the period of 2014–2020; the analysis was based on data from public statistics. The financial analysis carried out using the ROS (Return on Sale) indicator and the SI for the study (saving indicator) showed that the average SI/ROS increased by more than 2.78-fold over the study period. Moreover, for 185 powiats, the observed growth remained above average over a period of one to five years. The application of the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method allowed the relative efficiency of biogas utilization to be calculated at the powiat level (former LAU level 1). It was found that the utilization of biogas potential within cooperatives and energy clusters grouping food businesses is most effective mainly for urban powiats.
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