God and green: Investigating the impact of religiousness on green marketing

Abstract

As the population increases, more people are now aware of the impact of their consumption on the natural environment. Nonetheless, 1 important factor that is often neglected is religiousness. Studies of the impact of religiousness on individual behavior have become increasingly important because the majority of the world population belongs to 1 of the major world religions. Thus, the purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of consumers' religiousness toward proenvironmental identity, attitudes toward environmental issues, and subjective norms about the environment. Subsequently, this study investigates the impact of these variables on purchase intention of green products. Using sampling from Indonesia (n = 649), which has the largest Muslim population, the results show significant differences between religions. In general, similar findings were found in both samples of Muslim and Christian consumers, where intrinsic religiousness has a positive impact on proenvironmental identity, attitudes towards environmental issues, and subjective norms about the environment. The study also found that the 3 variables (proenvironmental identity, attitudes towards environmental issues, and subjective norms) are positive determinants of intention to purchase green products. Nevertheless, the role of extrinsic religiousness is different for the 2 samples. Extrinsic religiousness is negatively related to attitude towards environmental issues for Muslim consumers, where it has a positive influence on proenvironmental identity among Christian consumers. The results of this study have significant implications not only to managers but also religious leaders on how to encourage more positive attitudes toward the environment.