High Involvement and Ethical Consumption: A Study of the Environmentally Certified Home Purchase Decision

Abstract

Sustainable and energy efficient (SEE) attributes in the housing market have become a focus in Canada. Similarly, understanding the consumer’s decision-making process of this high-involvement ethical product has become a burgeoning area for researchers. This study describes the development of the subject, highlighting the nature of the ethical decision-making process and how it relates to this known intention–behaviour gap. An observation, followed by two studies consisting of in-depth interviews with real estate agents and sales representatives (n = 15) and home purchasers/consumers (n = 15), were conducted. Transcriptions were analysed qualitatively with NVivo Pro 12 software (NVivo Pro 12, QSR International Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Australia). Inductive thematic analysis revealed two main driving themes: information and trust in seller/realtor. Attribute investment return uncertainty was identified as a theme that affects the strength of the relationship between purchase intention and behaviour, whereas the trust in seller/realtor speaks to how and why this effect occurs. The findings present relationships among the driving factors that were identified by realtors and consumers in the SEE housing market, as well as barriers (investment return uncertainty) that prevent consumers from purchasing high-involvement ethical products.

Fans' perceptions of pro-environmental sustainability initiatives in sport and triple bottom line benefits

“…(2019), Li et al . (2021) and Foti and Devine (2019). The Cronbach's alpha for each subdimension of environmental benefits was 0.919, 0.844 and 0.909, respectively.…”

“…The environmental benefits included three dimensions exploring different levels/settings of personal environmental commitment: regular pro-environmental daily activities, pro-environmental consumption decisions and pro-environmental high involvement consumption decisions. The items measuring "pro-environmental daily activities" were adapted from Kellison and McCullough (2020), the items assessing "pro-environmental consumption habits/decisions" were selected from Gallup (2021), and the items examining "pro-environmental high involvement consumption decisions" were adapted from Bahja et al (2019), Li et al (2021) and Foti and Devine (2019). The Cronbach's alpha for each subdimension of environmental benefits was 0.919, 0.844 and 0.909, respectively.…”

Consumption in the Circular Economy: Learning from Our Mistakes

“…Among the most common, are explanations of the IBG such as barriers to SCB such as price premiums overtaking consumers' willingness to pay extra [103,104], the unavailability of sustainable/green alternatives [104,105] and lower perceived quality [106]. Further common explanations of the gap include situational factors, such as citizen-consumer role conflicts [107], and information-based reasons like lack of knowledge or trust regarding some sustainable product/service [108] and information overload, typically present in a market setting [109].…”

Understanding Consumer Environmental Ethics and the Willingness to Use Green Products

“…More businesses in the economic sector have become fully aware of the need to consider the environmental implications and the well-being of humans when embracing sustainability (Ogiemwonyi et al, 2022). Research in the past has examined some aspects of ethical policy and its implications as a tool for sustainable strategies De Chiara (2016), environmental ethical consumption behavior Foti and Devine (2019), and the social-ethical issue (Chen et al, 2020). Traditionally, the willingness to consume sustainable products is considered in some studies (Wei et al, 2018; Yang et al, 2021).…”