How Will Changes toward Pro-Environmental Behavior Play in Customers’ Perceived Value of Environmental Concerns at Coffee Shops?

Taeuk Kim,Sunmi Yun

doi:10.3390/su11143816

Abstract

Our theoretical framework was designed to explain customers’ decision-making process for (adopting/using?) environmentally responsible products in an eco-friendly coffee shop. We employed theory of planned behavior (TPB) and value-attitude-belief (VAB) to test their parallel mediating effect on attitudes toward environmental behavior (ATEB), perceived marketplace influence (PMI), and overall image (OI) as well as the moderating effect of switching cost (SC) on pro-environmental behavioral intentions. Data were collected through a survey of 527 customers who frequently visited a coffee shop in Korea, and structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test the research hypotheses. The findings generally supported the hypothesized associations of the study variables within our proposed theoretical framework (ATEB, PMI, and OI of the parallel mediating effect on pro-environmental behavioral intentions) and confirmed SC’s moderating effect. In addition, the study’s results have important 1) theoretical and 2) practical implications for the environment. 1) This study confirmed the relationship between mediating variables on PCBI and the parallel mediating effect on PCBI as demonstrated in previous studies. 2) Furthermore, these findings might lead coffee shops to voluntarily put an end to the use of disposable products such as plastic cups or straws, which carry great environmental risk.

Highlights

Growing environmental concerns have caused Korean people to become aware of the plastic waste issue too, which was created by the Chinese refusal to import waste [6]
The existing measurement literature was cruise [2], gender [73], general consumer [13,28,74], hotel and restaurant [75], religiosity [76], traveler [7,19,23] and so on; it was different from the coffee shop
It was judged that there was a gap in using the measurement items in existing literature in order to know the degree of customer behavior in the coffee shop

Summary

Introduction

Growing environmental concerns have caused Korean people to become aware of the plastic waste issue too, which was created by the Chinese refusal to import waste [6] Within this context, the use of plastic cups in coffee shops has become a social issue. Even the Ministry of Environment began restricting the use of plastic cups in coffee shops in August 2018 [5] These changes suggest that eco-friendly consumption is an obligation, not a choice. According to the Korea Consumer Agency’s [14] report, 87.1% of coffee-shop customers believe “coffee shops should reduce disposable product” compared to 3.0% of customers who believe that “there’s no need for Coffee-shops to ban disposable product.” This reveals the increase in customers’ concern with environmental responsibility and the need for eco-friendly marketing within coffee shops According to the Korea Consumer Agency’s [14] report, 87.1% of coffee-shop customers believe “coffee shops should reduce disposable product” compared to 3.0% of customers who believe that “there’s no need for Coffee-shops to ban disposable product.” This reveals the increase in customers’ concern with environmental responsibility and the need for eco-friendly marketing within coffee shops

Objectives

Methods

Results