Intention to adopt pro-environmental behaviors among university students of hard and soft sciences: the case of drinking by reusable bottles

Abstract

Purpose The market of bottled water is one of the largest in the world. Paradoxically, the consumption of water in plastic bottles is highest in countries rich in the potable tap water of excellent quality. This paper aims to gain a better understanding of the factors that foster or hinder the intention to use refillable water bottles by university students and to determine whether their study program played a moderating role. Design/methodology/approach Within the framework of Ajzen’s theory of planned behavior (TPB), this paper conducted this cross-sectional study to understand the influence of attitudes, norms and perceived behavioral control (PBC) on the intention to drink tap water from reusable bottles. Italian university students (n = 540) majoring in the hard (42.4%) or the soft (57.6%) sciences completed an anonymous self-report questionnaire. Findings For both groups, there was a significant association between attitudes and intention to use a refillable water bottle. The intention to drink tap water was also influenced by PBC among the hard science students, whereas among the soft science students the descriptive norm exerted a significant influence. Originality/value This is the first application of TPB, a well-established theoretical and methodological framework, to understand the intention of university students to drink tap water from reusable bottles. Within the framework of TPB, this study is the first to address this specific pro-environmental behavior and explore the potential moderating role of university studies programs, which proved significant.

Students' Environmentally-Friendly Behavior: The Mediating Effect Investigation

“…The finding of H4 with a significant positive beta value in this analysis illustrates that high schoolers' tendency to environmental behavior intentions increases with increasing environmental physics understanding. This finding strongly supports previous research, which states that environmental physics understanding contributes to individual environmental behavior intentions (Fröhlich et al, 2013;Fedi et al, 2021).…”

Understanding Waste Management Behavior Among University Students in China: Environmental Knowledge, Personal Norms, and the Theory of Planned Behavior

“…As this variable is based on an individual's perception about both personal and environmental factors that would facilitate or hinder their ability to perform a behavior, the TPB is superior to the TRA in predicting behaviors in more specific and complicated contexts (Ajzen, 1991). Previous studies have applied the TPB and confirmed the usefulness of this model in predicting both intention to recycle (Taylor and Todd, 1995;Mannetti et al, 2004;Greaves et al, 2013;Botetzagias et al, 2015;Wan et al, 2017;Passafaro et al, 2019;Tian et al, 2019;Fedi et al, 2021) and recycling behavior (Tang et al, 2011;del Aguilar-Luzón et al, 2012;Onel and Mukherjee, 2017;Passafaro et al, 2019). Based on these studies, the following hypotheses are proposed: H1a: Subjective norms positively predict waste management behavior.…”

The role of higher education towards sustainable consumption behavioural change: topics discussed in sustainable consumption education

“…The prediction of the SC behaviour is another topic and some authors used psycho-behavioural sciences to explain human behaviour [34]- [36]. Also face to face interviews and descriptive survey methods were used to better understand the students SC behaviour in specific circumstances [37], [38].…”