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Although research in marketing and consumer behavior has tried to portray sustainable consumers in many different ways, a clear, consistent, and granular identification of these consumers is still not available due to the complexity of sustainable consumption. This study adopts personas as a way to better explain and understand the holistic nature and complexity of sustainable consumer behavior in terms of its various stages (i.e. acquisition, usage, and postuse) within four key behavioral functions of mobility, housing, clothing, and food. Different sustainability related functions of personas are seen to be fundamental lifestyle components and could be fulfilled by a variety of sustainable actions. This exploratory study uses a qualitative methodology, involving data collection through multiple in-depth interviews across several countries. The results reveal three different consumer archetypes with distinct sustainable consumption strategies: holistic sustainable consumers, transitional sustainable consumers, and restricted sustainable consumers. Managerial and theoretical implications provide practical recommendations for marketing managers and public policy planners, as well as directions for continued research in this area.

The acceleration of environmental, economic, and social issues across the global marketplace has stimulated a variety of responses from many entities, including global companies and business schools, as they race to adapt to increasingly significant economic, demographic, and technological changes. Following these dynamic trends, several business schools have come to recognize the importance of implementing sustainability in different areas of business education. Sustainability has been taught in university education programs in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, but the application to business schools is a recent expansion. Case study methodology investigates the significance of incorporating sustainability concepts into business education in terms of (1) meeting overall educational goals, and (2) illustrating how implementation is an opportunity to reinforce adopted learning goals of business schools. Findings illuminate best practices and sustainable strategy initiatives in 20 business schools. We recommend an enhanced four-point strategy to integrate Education for Sustainable Development into business schools.

International communities are in general agreement that fulfilling environmental goals for a sustainable future is only possible with the reduction of consumptions’ detrimental effects. This, however, requires a deep understanding of the factors affecting environmentally significant consumer behaviors, such as buying ecologically friendly products, recycling, using household energy vigilantly, or driving less frequently. In recent years, we see an increasing number of studies in behavioral research looking at environmental attitudes, values, and behavior that try to understand relationships with different variables from different theoretical perspectives. These studies, however, largely lack an overarching perspective that considers variety of theories and behaviors with a comparative approach. As such, this study tries to fill this gap by exploring the functioning of consumer behavior in the environmental domain with a comparative approach, which is needed to uncover every aspect of the forces behind environmentally significant behaviors of consumers. Mainly, this study examines the explanatory power of the three theories, Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), Value-Belief-Norm (VBN), and Theory on Affect (TA), which focus on gain motives, moral concerns, and hedonic motives, respectively, and compares with each other for three different stages of consumption, namely, purchase, usage, and post-use behaviors.

This study aims to examine the value of personal norms in addition to the theory of planned behavior (TPB) variables (i.e., attitude toward behavior, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, and behavioral intention) in explaining consumers’ pro-environmental purchasing behavior. The hypotheses and model were formulated and tested with structural equation modeling using the data from 281 consumers who are active members of a U.S.-based recycling company. Model fit statistics indicate a good fit of empirical data and model structure for pro-environmental purchasing behavior. The findings suggest that while personal and subjective norms, attitudes toward behavior, and intention explain consumers’ pro-environmental purchasing behavior, perceived behavioral control does not have any power in explaining behavior-related intention. Policy makers and marketing professionals are advised to adopt various social and sustainability marketing strategies that focus on communicating different normative aspects of purchasing decisions to promote pro-environmental consumer behaviors. The normative concerns covered in the environmental behavior studies are mostly limited to “subjective norms” as represented in the TPB, which has been widely adopted in the behavioral studies. By extending the TPB with “personal norms,” this study contributes to the better explanation of environmentally relevant purchase behaviors of consumers.

Purpose Environmental behavior studies suggest that knowledge, in addition to other psychological and social factors, can play an important role in consumers’ environmental behavior change. The purpose of this paper is to understand the relationship between knowledge and various psychological factors which encourage consumers’ participation in pro-environmental behaviors. The relationships that link an individual’s attitudes toward science, environmental values, different types of knowledge (i.e. scientific facts, environmental facts, and subjective environmental knowledge), environmental risk perception, and willingness to pay (WTP) for the environment with pro-environmental behavior were examined. Design/methodology/approach Theoretically guided hypotheses and model were formulated and tested with multiple linear regression models. The study was based on measures and data obtained from the large-sample secondary database of the 2010 General Social Survey (n=2,044). Findings Results indicated that while attitudes toward science had direct effects on knowledge of scientific facts and knowledge of environmental facts, environmental values showed effects on knowledge of environmental facts and subjective knowledge on environmental issues. The results also indicated that from different types of knowledge, subjective knowledge on environmental issues had effects on both environmental risk perception and WTP for the environment. Knowledge on environmental facts, on the other hand, was able to predict only environmental risk perception. The scientific factual knowledge did not show an effect on mediator of pro-environmental behavior. Also, subjective knowledge indicated indirect effects on pro-environmental behavior through environmental risk perception and WTP for the environment. Originality/value Although research on understanding factors influencing pro-environmental behaviors and potential relations to individual knowledge has grown in recent years, there has been very little attempt at distinguishing between different types of knowledge and investigating their potential roles in the context of environmentally relevant behaviors. This study will help understand the functioning of different types of consumer environmental knowledge and their impacts on pro-environmental behaviors more in depth.

Consumers spend less than 90 s making up their minds about a product after their initial interaction with it. Most of their assessments in this short amount of time are based on the visual attributes of the products. The overall purpose of this study is to take the first step toward understanding consumer attitudes toward environmental claims on packages by using low- and high-involvement products and then determining how different product claims (verbal and visual) affect their decision-making processes. Specifically, based on the elaboration likelihood model (ELM), this study examines consumer responses to environmental verbal statements and green visual components of product packages. The research utilizes a 2 (claim: eco-friendly or high performance) × 2 (color: green or yellow) factorial experiment (n = 256) to understand how packaging elements can affect buying decisions of consumers by varying product packaging on both high-involvement (laptop computer) and low-involvement (dishwashing detergent) products. The results show that green color packaging elicits better attitudes than nongreen for low-involvement products because these products are perceived as being more environmentally friendly. The results also demonstrated that for the eco-friendly claim, the color-product fit was significantly higher for green products than nongreen products. However, for performance claim (i.e., Ultra Clean), the results did not show any significant difference in terms of color-product fit. Also, for the high-involvement product claims, the study results did not show any significant difference in consumer responses.

Sustainable business development has moved into the social fabric of corporations alongside historical parameters of business performance such as profit margins and return on investment. The transition to envelope a mindset beyond profits has been supported by initiatives founded by the United Nations (UN) Millennium Development Goals and more recently the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, sustainable business development faces challenges in both emerging and developed nations to infuse corporate social responsibility and innovation to address current environmental conditions that endanger public health. The UN suggests that to achieve these measures will require new economic paradigms, behavioral pattern changes in corporate and consumer consumption of natural resources, adaptive policy, and commitments to limit resource use. This chapter defines the evolution of sustainability and presents key components from a business perspective. Next, the impact of business environmental sustainability on public health is discussed using several examples of how corporations address important problems such as e-waste, natural habitat conservation, and employee safety and health. From there, we review management tools to assess sustainability providing insight to corporate business ventures that are best aligned with SDGs. Finally, we summarize key points of the material and present a high-level list of best practices.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine five different types of eco-sensitive behaviours separately and understand if determinants of these behaviours vary depending on the type of action being performed. Design/methodology/approach – The study investigates factors influencing five different eco-sensitive behaviours by empirically testing the effects of socio-economic status (SES), gender, age and environmental values. Theoretically guided hypotheses and models were formulated and tested with multiple linear regression models by employing a data set from the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) 2010 General Social Survey. Findings – Results conclude that different types of behaviour have different predictors. While age differences only explain recycling cans and bottles, gender difference explains buying pesticide-free fruits/vegetables and avoiding environmentally harmful products. Values, on the other hand, predict all five eco-behaviours. Driving less and saving water for environmental reasons were least explained by the examined predictors. Originality/value – These results contribute to untangling the confusing research evidence on the effects of SES, age, gender and environmental values on different environmental behaviours and on the relationship between them by examining each behaviour separately.

While there is considerable research on environmental performance of countries, there is very little that focuses on environmental health as a component of environmental performance and how environmental health is affected by national culture and human development. This study proposes and empirically tests three models that examine the effects of cultural values and human development on environmental health by incorporating different variables from Human Development Index, Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions, and Environmental Performance Index. Multiple linear regression models were employed to test the hypotheses on a sample of 67 countries. Empirical results conclude that cultural dimensions of individualism and uncertainty avoidance, as well as human development components of life expectancy at birth, education, and income significantly influence environmental health performance of countries when we execute separate models. A combined model of the effects of national culture and human development on environmental health, however, shows only significant effects of human development components. Theoretical and policy implications are discussed.