Drivers of consumers’ environmental behavior are widely studied, but noncognitive and nonenvironmental awareness-related drivers are often overlooked. This study also looks beyond environmental attitudes such as frugality and shopping orientation.
A partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) research model was developed to assess the links between exogenous constructs of environmental and nonenvironmental attitudes and their impact on the construct of environmental behavior, through the mediating effect of conservation attitudes. The model was tested on a representative, 1,000-respondent consumer survey.
The results showed that, in addition to environmental attitudes, financial frugality also had a positive effect on environmental behavior, both directly and indirectly. However, shopping orientation had a negative indirect effect on environmental behavior. The significant role of noncognitive factors on environmental behavior was thus confirmed.
The interrelationship of various and potentially divergent factors of environmental behavior needs to be better identified in future studies. A limitation is that even if the sample is representative, it only covers one country.
Promoting only environmental drivers of pro-environmental behavior is not sufficient, as economic pro-growth messages can outweigh the positive effects.
To improve environmental behavior of consumers, a multifaceted approach is needed to study the various drivers of that behavior.
The authors have included both incremental variables and radical lifestyle-change-related ones in the construct of environmental behavior, while most SEM studies are limited to the former. Furthermore, the authors also included noncognitive and habitual attitudes as exogenous constructs, a missing link from most studies. The use of a multidimensional environmental behavior scale also adds novelty.
