Abstract
With sustainability being one of the most common issues facing consumers and society today, this paper explores the status of sustainable consumption in Korea and Japan—societies expected to drive the changes pertaining to sustainable consumption in Asia. Although Korea and Japan have been implementing sustainability-related policies, there is still room for development of sustainability in terms of consumers’ participation. As sustainable consumption is defined as consumers’ environmental decision-making process, which requires cognitive efforts, it is necessary to understand individual’s sustainable consumption based on the conceptual model of behavior, in order to encourage the adoption of more sustainable consumer practices. Being grounded in the revised Theory of Reasoned Action, which adds consumers’ awareness, pro-environmental self-identity, and descriptive norm, this study contributes to a better empirical understanding of the factors that underlie sustainable consumption behaviors with respect to social-cognitive viewpoint. By involving a survey of Korean and Japanese respondents’ awareness, descriptive norm, practical behavior to 47 specific activities, as well as attitude and pro-environmental self-identity, the study works on two levels: on one level, it is a study of sustainability-related consumer activities and behaviors in Korea and Japan; on another level, it identifies key variables to explain sustainable consumption behavior through hierarchical regression analysis. The results show that among the numerous sectors requiring prioritized expansion of sustainable consumption, the area of consumer citizenship has received relatively little publicity. Another important finding is that the failure to practically engage in sustainability-related activities by consumers cannot simply be attributed to knowledge deficit, as consumers in both countries appropriately recognize sustainable consumption. Our results clearly illustrate that consumers perform sustainable consumption behavior based mostly on socially shared connotations—the descriptive norm—while the other key variables affecting sustainable consumption are awareness, and pro-environmental self-identity. However, we also observed that there is no significant effect on attitude, indicating that even a favorable attitude toward performing sustainability-related activities does not directly translate into actual behavior. This paper shows how consumer perceptions of the normality of environmentally friendly behaviors can be used for the design of strategies to promote sustainable consumption in Korean and Japanese societies. In addition, we provide practical guidelines for the expansion of sustainable consumption tailored for the characteristics of each society.
Highlights
The term “sustainable consumption” was formally introduced by the Oslo Symposium in 1994, and since interest in it has grown among researchers, practitioners, and policy-makers world-wide—including in both Korea and Japan
We develop elaborative behavioral models of sustainable consumption based on a revised Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA), which serves consumers’ contextual thinking and decision-making with respect to social-cognitive process, since consumers’ voluntary eco-friendly behavior requires cognitive efforts with critical deliberation
Having noted that “sustainability” is one of the common priority issues today, this paper explored the status of sustainable consumption in Korea and Japan
Summary
The term “sustainable consumption” was formally introduced by the Oslo Symposium in 1994, and since interest in it has grown among researchers, practitioners, and policy-makers world-wide—including in both Korea and Japan. The question of how sustainable consumption behavior can be promoted features prominently on the agenda of policy-makers and researchers alike [3]. While individual consumption behavior is expected to result in a slight reduction of negative environmental effects, individual consumption habits in developed countries appear to have more significant impacts on the environment. As higher income countries tend to pollute more owing to the concentration of economic activities [6], rapid industrialization in developed countries, and the consequent increase in pollution levels have raised concerns about the unsustainability of current consumption. It is clear that the tendency of unsustainability in those countries decreases due to environmental regulations and development of technology, after reaching a certain point of economic development [6]
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