Content area
Full Text
Introduction
During the past few decades, the topic of environmental sustainability has received much attention within the marketing literature (Jansson et al. , 2010; Leonidou et al. , 2013; Powell, 2011). As our world faces many environmental challenges, the idea that the solution to these problems depends not just on more sustainable production but also on changes in consumer behavior has gained popularity (Sandhu et al. , 2010). Steering consumers toward more environmentally sustainable consumption is thus seen as desirable by many actors in society.
However, while the concepts of green, sustainable and environmental marketing have existed for several decades, the results of related initiatives are discouraging from both research and sustainability perspectives (Crane, 2000). Research highlights that many green products, regardless of the labeling or certifications used to indicate that they are environmentally friendly, fail to gain a significant market share (UNEP, 2005; Zammit-Lucia, 2013). This phenomenon, where consumers claim to be interested in purchasing environmentally friendly goods and services but rarely follow these expressed intentions, is known as the attitude/behavior gap, the topic of a vast body of research (Carrington et al. , 2010, 2014; Moraes et al. , 2012). Research on this topic has shown repeatedly that while environmental attitudes and values contribute to a person's acting in a responsible manner (Rindell et al. , 2014), the connection between internal motivating factors and actual consumer behavior is often limited (Carrington et al. , 2010).
Against the background of these findings on the internal attitudinal motivations for green consumer behavior (GCB), there is an emerging understanding that other factors beyond internal environmental attitudes, values and norms may influence whether consumers choose to buy green products and services. One such emerging topic is the symbolic consumption (or social influence ) perspective on GCB (Griskevicius et al. , 2010; Salazar et al. , 2013). Here, consumers are seen not only as independent decision-makers driven by internal attitudes and values but rather as shaped by their social interactions and the influence of others. For example, choosing green products can be a considerable source of social status that some consumers use to communicate an identity to their peers (Griskevicius et al. , 2010), and people tend to look to others when deciding whether to buy those...