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Consumers’ (Not So) Green Purchase Behavior

Jonas Lehmann,Y. Sheffi

Published 2020 in Unknown venue

ABSTRACT

The discrepancy between consumers’ progressive environmental attitudes in polls, and their actual purchase behavior, has led to research on the behavioral and socio-economic drivers of sustainable purchase behavior. The results of this body of research are, unfortunately, inconsistent. This paper complements the existing research using two unique datasets. The first is based on ‘interception’ of consumers at the shopping aisle at the point of choice. The second is an aggregate data set incuding the socio-economic characteristic of consumers in the catchment areas of hundreds of retail outlets. A structural equations model of the first data set indicate that subjective norms dominate purchase intentions. Purchase intention, in turn, was found to be a significant determinant of actual purchase behavior, although the overall impact on the likelihood of choosing a sustainable product is limited. Using the second data set, the sales shares of sustainable products for each of 408 retail stores was correlated with the socio-demographic population profiles of the store’s catchment area. Higher income and higher education in the population as well as larger store size and higher number of customers were found to be positively associated with higher sales of ‘green’ products. In further analysis of the consumer interview data, price was found, not surpirsigly, to be the main purchase barrier for sustainable household goods, followed by lack of information and lack of familiarity. The findings indicate that even positively inclined customers do not change their purchase behavior owing mainly to economic barriers. 1 Corresponding author lehmannj@mit.edu

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