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ABSTRACT
Along with Businesses, consumers also play a vital role in promoting green revolution in any country by conscious environmentally responsible purchase decisions. And thus, understanding the consumer behavior towards environmentally safe products is important for enterprises. Studies have identified different psychographic factors that can be considered as predictors of environmentally responsible behavior. This paper tries to build a comprehensive regression model considering psychographic factors such as Environmental Attitude, Environmental Concern, Collectivism, Subjective Norms, Perceived consumer effectiveness, Self-transcendence and Self-enhancement as predictors of Green Purchase Intentions of consumers. A survey of 244 students of different graduation and Post-graduation courses of a private university of India was conducted to collect the data. The correlation and regression model identified Environmental Attitude, Environmental Concern, Subjective Norms, and Perceived consumer effectiveness as strong predictors of Green Purchase Intention.
Introduction
As the environment continues to worsen, it has become a persistent public concern in the developed countries and has recently awakened developing countries to the green movement (Chen & Chai, 2010). Also, because individual behavior is considered as the main cause of environmental degradation, the role of personal consumption is gaining concern to check the deterioration of our environment. About 30 -40 % environmental degradation has been brought about by the consumption activities of the households. Thus, by modifying their consumption behavior, consumers can contribute to environment protection.
As recognized by many researchers, consumers play a vital role in sustainable development as consumers' preferences and demands are in a key position when producers consider whether it is worthwhile investing in environment-friendly products and production. Also, consumers' own choices and lifestyles have a direct impact on the environment. With increasing consumption level particularly among the developing nations like India, the behavior of the consumers will play a crucial role for the consumer himself basing his or her acquisition, usage, and disposition of products on a desire to minimize or eliminate any harmful effects and maximize the long-term beneficial impact on society (Mohr et al., 2004).
If consumers display environmental concern and reflect it into their consumption behavior, marketers will be motivated to practice green marketing without compromising the profitability. One type of environmentally conscious behavior is environmental consumerism (green buying), that is, purchasing and consuming products that are benign...