Transition towards Sustainability: Adoption of Eco-Products among Consumers

Abstract

Transition to sustainability is a long-term challenge which should also actively engage consumers, as consumption causes environmental stress. In order to understand how consumers adopt eco-products, we conducted an extensive literature review of green consumerism and presented findings of 47 previous research works. In addition, this study’s aim was to explore whether consumers remain only concerned about the environment or whether they actually make a difference. Moreover, we examined gender differences. Because the relationship between consumers’ environmental concern and purchase intention is not straightforward, we aimed to explore the effect of consumers’ environmental concern on their purchase intention. The purpose of this paper was to explore how consumers’ familiarity with and consciousness of eco-products and their perceived sense of environmental responsibility mediate the relationship between consumers’ environmental concern and their purchase intention. We used structural equation modeling to test the proposed conceptual model based on a sample of 705 Slovenian consumers. Our findings suggest that all the above-mentioned constructs mediate the relationship between consumers’ environmental concern and their purchase intention in relation to eco-products. However, consumers’ consciousness of eco-products has the greatest effect in channeling environmental concern into purchase intention of eco-products. In addition, the findings indicate that female consumers express greater environmental concern, consciousness of eco-products, and perceived environmental responsibility than male consumers. The paper concludes with policy and managerial implications, theoretical implications, limitations of the study, and future research directions based on the findings of consumers’ perspectives.

Environmentally responsible behaviour of consumers: Evidence from Slovakia

“…Our investigation related to the differences in gender are in line with studies of Liobikienė et al (2017) and Hojnik et al (2019), which found that woman behave in a more environmentally friendly way and are more consciousness of eco-labelled products than male consumers. Green purchase behaviour is significantly related to environmentally friendly behaviour.…”

Green Marketing: The Effectiveness of Socio-Demographic Variables for Explaining Green Purchases Behavior in Emerging Markets

“…Irianto (2015) confirmed positive attitudes and positive purchasing intentions of women towards green food. Research that covered consumers from Slovenia showed that women expressed more profound concern about the environment and had greater awareness of eco-products than men, even though there were no differences between women and men regarding green purchase intentions (Hojnik et al, 2019). The share of Macedonian women in the green segment is high (Bojkovska et al, 2016).…”

Predicting green product purchase: Applying a Cognitive-Affective-Behavior hierarchy

“…Consumers' awareness of the environment is increasing worldwide. Hence, many companies started to produce and create products that are environmentally friendly and have a smaller adverse effect on the environment (Hojnik et al, 2019). The increasing environmental awareness makes changes in consumers' consuming behavior to purchase more ecofriendly products (Siddique and Hossain, 2018).…”