Sustainable consumption from the consumer’s perspective : a study on the purchase intention of green food in China

Abstract

Due to the increasing awareness and concern of widespread global environmental degradation over the last two decades, the concept of sustainable development has changed people’s mind and behaviours even in developing countries such as China. In recent years, China has been paying a higher ecological price for its rapid economic growth in terms of worsening pollution than many other developed countries and become “the most ecologically unsound place in the world”. Green food as an eco-friendly concept begins to permeate people’s daily life. It is commonly believed that consumers’ purchasing and consumption behaviours of food products have great impact on the global environment. For this reason, the analysis of consumers’ consumption behaviour of green food has become a subject of intense research recently in attempt to enhance the individuals’ engagement in behaviours supportive of sustainable consumption. Previous research suggested that behaviours are largely influenced by the intentions of people. Therefore, this research will concentrate on the purchase intentions of the consumers of green food in China. This research examined the factors influencing consumers’ intention to purchase the green food products. A revised Responsible Environmental Behavior (REB) model was used as the conceptual framework of the research to examine the influencing factors of green food purchase intentions in China. A web-based questionnaire survey was used to collect the primary data from the capital city Beijing. Based on the 239 valid responses, this research identified the key psycho-social factors of green food purchase intention. Factor analysis was used to examine the validity and reliability of all research instruments. Then, the Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was used to verify the theoretical model and test the research hypotheses. The research findings indicated that the locus of control (LOC) is more important in predicting purchase intention of the green food than other factors. Another factor that can directly influence purchase intention is attitudes. Other factors like personal responsibility (PR), knowledge of issues (KOI), and action skills (AS) also affect consumers’ intention but indirectly. By examining factors which influence consumers’ intention to purchase, the revised REB model based on green food purchase has been verified. A better understanding of the relationships between key influencing factors and purchase intention of green food market in China was achieved. Furthermore, the findings offered further support to the robustness of the REB in explaining behaviours of environmental consumption. This research has generated some useful implications for the practitioners to develop green food market strategies and to promote green food consumption further in the future.