An Extension of Consumers’ Green Consumption Value to Financial Life: An Abstract

Abstract

Placing value on green consumption can be viewed as an example of consumers changing things themselves? Has the consumer found a new value? This study seeks to answer this question, as an affirmative answer would make the green consumption value sustainable. Since the Second World War, industrialization in the West has led to economic growth and improvement in consumption levels, resulting in material richness. However, resource depletion has created environmental problems, such as climate change, destruction of the ozone layer and global ecosystems, desertification, acid rain, and marine pollution. As a result, human survival is threatened (Chan 2001). According to the United Nations-sponsored IPCC’s fourth report in 2007, without further reductions in carbon dioxide emissions the temperature of the atmosphere will rise between 1.4 °C and 5.8 °C by the end of the twenty-first century. The report found that the shift in weather patterns as a result of climate change cost $3 billion a year in the 1950s but rose to $40 billion a year in the 1990s. Research on green consumption, which has been attracting attention from marketing since the 1970s, arose due to various sustainability studies in the twenty-first century (Kinoti 2011). The research problem that has been consistently pointed out is the gap between behavior and attitude (Claudy et al. 2013). Many studies have also found a gap between intention and behavior (Zabkar and Hosta 2013). In other words, consumers approve of green products and behavior, but consumers’ follow-through with green behavior does not match their good intentions. Various studies have been conducted in an effort to learn how to reduce the gap between attitude and behavior. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of differences in socio-demographic variables on environmental behaviors and environmental consciousness, and to identify the factors influencing environmental behavior through socio-psychological variables such as values and beliefs (Stern et al. 1999). As mentioned earlier, there are many discussions about sustainable consumption behavior in studies of attitudes and behaviors of consumers. Further research is needed to discover the keys to developing and sustaining consumers’ green consumption value. Therefore, in this study, we analyze the existing theory of green consumption value, identify important factors, and suggest theoretical discussion and policy implications to develop consumers’ green consumption value. This study establishes and confirms a new model for sustainable consumption behavior based on the theoretical basis of existing green consumption value research. Based on this analysis, factors to be considered for future development of consumers green consumption value were identified and analyzed. Therefore, in order to continuously expand the green consumption value in enterprises and national policy, psychological stabilization related to economic value will lead a psychological transition in favor of the green consumption value.