Reducing food waste generation in Thailand through environmental consciousness, green marketing, and purchasing discipline: Mediating role of recycling behavior

• Published date: 01 May 2020
• Author: Aksorn Sawasdee,Sudarat Rodboonsong,Watcharin Joemsittiprasert
• Date: 01 May 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/wfp2.12010

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wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/wfp2 World Food Policy. 2020;6:60–77.

© 2020 Policy Studies Organization

DOI: 10.1002/wfp2.12010

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Reducing food waste generation in Thailand through

environmental consciousness, green marketing, and

purchasing discipline: Mediating role of recycling

behavior

AksornSawasdee1

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SudaratRodboonsong2

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WatcharinJoemsittiprasert3

1Faculty of Humanities and Social

Sciences, Phranakhon Rajabhat University,

Bangkok, Thailand

2Faculty of Humanities and Social

Sciences, Uttaradit Rajabhat University,

Uttaradit, Thailand

3Division of Business Administration, ASA

College, New York, NY, USA

Correspondence

Aksorn Sawasdee, Faculty of Humanities

and Social Sciences, Phranakhon Rajabhat

University, Bangkok, Thailand.

Email: love2aksorn@hotmail.com

Abstract

Food wastage has been reached to an alarming level and

many social and governmental bodies are scared from the

respective numbers. A significant bulk from such food

wastage occurs due to non-recycling of wastage and thus

pollution is been generating every day from the same di-

lemma. This study has tried to see the role of environmental

consciousness, green marketing, and purchasing discipline

on food wastage generation in mediating the role of recy-

cling behavior. Data have been collected from Thailand

where many tourists stay engage in this harmful activity.

Responses of 303 respondents have been analyzed on SPSS

and AMOS through different statistical tests. Results have

indicated that green marketing and purchasing discipline

significantly reduces the food waste generation while en-

vironmental consciousness did not show significant im-

pact. Recycling behavior significantly mediates between

green marketing and food wastage and between purchasing

decision and food wastage but not for environmental con-

sciousness. This study has a lot of worthy implications for

academia, practice, and society.

KEYWORDS

environmental consciousness, food wastage, green marketing, purchasing

discipline and Thailand, recycling behavior

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INTRODUCTION

The growing in the global population is moving toward urban lifestyle and becoming wealthy day

by day. Thyberg and Tonjes (2016) claim that this urbanized population has diverse dietary pat-

terns which have caused an increased demand for resources like land, meat, dairy, and greenhouse

gas intensive foods. Scientists have estimated that within a time span of 40years, this increased

demand for food, water, and land resources will lead to an intensified usage (Godfray et al., 2010;

Springmann, Godfray, Rayner, & Scarborough, 2016). The unpredictable environmental conditions

and the global climate have made these difficulties worse (Haseeb, Kot, Hussain, & Jermsittiparsert,

2019; Kasayanond, Umam, & Jermsittiparsert, 2019). These negative impacts on the food system

need to be controlled and minimized to ensure sufficient food availability. Godfray and Garnett

(2014) consider it an urgent need of the hour to take steps to create a sustainable food system and

to take actions for moderating food demand, food production, improving governance strategies, and

reducing waste production.

Waste management has become a wagering issue for both the developed and developing coun-

tries across the world and the food waste represents a significant fraction of the solid waste prod-

ucts (Pham, Kaushik, Parshetti, Mahmood, & Balasubramanian, 2015). One-third of the total food

that is produced for human consumption is lost while moving along the supply chain. Huang,

Singh, and Qureshi (2015) discuss in their research that this lost food includes the products that

are unconsumed and discarded by the food making and processing industries, the retailers, the

restaurants, and the end consumer. Like any other big city with a large number of tourists, Bangkok

has a ton of food wastage, about 1.5kg per person, out of which a low ratio of 13% is recycled

(Atthirawong, 2016). As shown in Figure 1, food waste is the largest component of the solid waste

produced annually in Bangkok. Creation of an environmentally aware and sustainable community

needs to involve recycling behaviors at the low levels of end consumers (Kato, Tran, & Hoang,

2015).

Environmental consciousness in the population of a country allows for them to be aware about

how their particular actions and decisions might affect their surrounding environment. This makes the

people a little more considerate and careful while making a purchasing decision, because theywant

FIGURE 1 Bangkok's solid waste classification