Making Sustainable Consumption Choices: A Planned Behavior Approach.

• Author: Mukherji, Jyotsna

Importance of Studying Sustainable Consumption Behaviors

The Brundtland Commission (Our Common Future, 1987) defines sustainability as meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. The premise of the United Nations World Summit on sustainable development in Johannesburg in 2002 was that fundamental changes in the way societies produce and consume are imperative to achieve sustainable development and to achieve this goal requires effort from governments, producers, and consumers. Since the focus of our study is the consumer, we address sustainability from a consumer's perspective, namely buying reusable water bottles.

The culture of consumption is the third force responsible for driving both consumption of energy and pollution of the environment. Personal consumption choices, especially among middle-and upper-class people, drive increases in the use of energy and transportation. Most water, land, and atmospheric pollution can be traced to the production and increased consumption of various products. Strong links between industrial production, mass marketing, and pride in consumption emerged in the late nineteenth century, when many sociologists believe the "culture of consumption" originated in the United States. US economist Thorstein Veblen (Trigg, 2001) coined the term "conspicuous consumption" to describe the US trend of displaying luxury items in order to enhance self-esteem, and to exhibit a higher social status. Harvard University economist Juliet Schor (1988) defines contemporary consumer culture as social systems in which "consumer satisfaction, and dissatisfaction, depend less on what a person has in an absolute sense than on socially formed aspirations and expectations [of what material accumulations one should have]" (p. 9).

Plastic waste is a global problem. According to an article written in the National Geographic (Parker, 2019), globally more than a million plastic bottles are sold every single minute. Use of plastic bottle brings into the conversation the issue of recycling. However, data shows that in the US only 30% of the plastic bottles are recycled. The half-life of plastics is 450 years, time required for plastic to be fully degraded. Finally, bottled water requires up to 2000 times more energy than required to produce tap water. The above shows that in every way using single use disposable water bottles is harmful. This issue warrants study, since the US is the largest consumer of plastic water bottles followed by Mexico, Brazil, and China.

Theoretical Background

An important theoretical framework that guides this research is the theory of planned behavior (TPB) (Ajzen, 1991), stemming from the theory of reasoned action, which suggests that attitudes (A) and subjective norms (SN), mediated by behavioral intention (BI), have impacts on environmental behaviors (H). TPB model adds the perceived behavioral control (PBC) into the theoretical frame (Ajzen, 1991). Taylor and Todd (1997) use TPB to suggest the determinants of participation in waste management programs. Moreover, TPB has been applied to the studies such as household recycling (Kaiser & Gutscher, 2003), the purchasing of energy-saving light bulbs, the use of unbleached paper, water use, meat consumption (Harland et al., 1999), and general pro-environmental behavior.

Theory of Planned behavior

Fishbein and Ajzen's "theory of reasoned action" has generated a good amount of research, which focuses on the link between attitudes and behavior. Of late, researchers have turned to the boundary conditions of the theory of reasoned action (Bagozzi & Kemmel, 1995). Ajzen (1985), arguing that the theory of reasoned action applies strictly to behaviors under total volitional control (e.g., voting in a political election), proposed the theory of planned behavior as an explanation of actions not completely under volitional control (e.g., weight loss). Therefore, "to ensure accurate prediction of behavior over which individuals have only limited control, we must assess not only intention but also obtain estimates of the extent to which the individual is capable of exercising control over the behavior in question" (Ajzen & Madden, 1986, p. 456). Thus, the theory of planned behavior can be thought of as an extension of the theory of reasoned action in that it accounts for behaviors that an individual regards as potentially subject to interferences by internal and external impediments. The theory of planned behavior adds a new predictor of intentions and behavior: perceived behavioral control, which is defined as one's belief as to how easy or difficult performance of a behavior is likely to be (Bagozzi & Kemmel, 1995).

Summary of Conceptual Model

The outcome variables are intention to purchase a sustainable product, a reusable water bottle, and a behavior, actually using one. These two outcomes (intentions and behavior) are conceptualized as being impacted by new environmental values, attitudes toward plastics, and perceptions of constraints in the use of reusable water bottles. This model would demonstrate whether the theory of planned behavior provides a good model to understand intentions and behavior of a sustainable product and to understand the relative importance of the antecedent variables in the Hispanic sample.

Study Constructs and Hypothesized Relationships New Environmental Paradigm

It is often suggested that people's values have an influence on their environmental attitudes and behaviors (Stern 2000). According to Rokeach (1973), values act as guideposts for behavior and serve as guiding principles in life. There is an impressive body of research which...