The Ultimate Marketing Challenge: Understanding Environmentally Conscious Consumer Behaviour and the Role of Environmental Concern: An Abstract

Abstract

As the world population grows, the earth is being placed under extreme pressure (de Marsily and Abarca-del-Rio 2016). The bulk of the growth, both population and economic, is occurring in the emerging markets. Due to the harmful effects on the environment, sustainability has been emphasized by businesses and a higher priority has been placed on understanding the environmental habits of consumers (Gadenne et al. 2011; Jansson et al. 2011). Environmental concern and its link with environmental behaviour is a complex topic and has not been well understood in the past. According to Royne et al. (2011) and Zhou (2013), some studies report a positive correlation between environmental concern and environmental behaviour, while Steg (2008) states that more than often no significant correlation is found between green concern and behaviour. Most studies have also taken place in 1st world countries (Young et al. 2010) and according to de Barcellos et al. (2011) research has been very scarce in developing countries, such as South Africa. This research intended to develop a greater understanding of consumer environmental concern by assessing the egoistic, altruistic and biospheric values of individuals and their relationship with environmental consumer behaviour. Bamberg and Möser (2007) state that ecological behaviour is perhaps best described as a combination of one’s self-interest (egoistic), concern about the well-being of future generations (altruistic), as well as concern about animals and the health of the earth (biospheric). In order to accomplish the above objective, a descriptive and quantitative study was conducted using a sample of 386 students from a South African university. This study specifically focused on young adults’ they have the ability to make a difference in sustainability (McDougle et al. 2011). A structured questionnaire using a Likert scale question format was designed to measure the egoistic, altruistic and biospheric values, and environmental behaviour of young adults. Cronbach’s Alphas for the three value orientations and environmental behaviour were all 0.7 or above. Correlation tests and multiple regression analyses were employed to investigate the relationships between environmental values and behaviour. It was found that both altruistic and biospheric values have significantly positive relationships with green behaviour however only biospheric values are a significant predictor of green behaviour. Recommendations for governments, businesses, marketers and green behaviour models are made.