The Pro-Environmental Producer Behavior on Food Small and Medium Enterprises in Malang, Indonesia

Abstract

Pro-environmental producer behavior is increasingly important to realize an environmentally friendly business. The research aimed to identify the knowledge, attitudes, religiosity, and behavior of the food small and medium enterprises (SME) producers towards the environment; and to analyze the influence on the SMEs’ performance. The research object was SMEs of “Tempe chips” in Malang City, East Java Province, Indonesia. The results show that the majority of producers already have knowledge of the green raw materials and production process, but only a few of them know about green packaging. The producers’ attitude supported the environmentally friendly production process, although it was still at a lower level than religiosity. The producers’ behavior is still less pro-environment in terms of raw materials usage, production process, and packaging. They have implemented water and energy saving, but have not been able to avoid plastic packaging. The SEM results showed that the producer’s attitude influences their behavior toward environment, meanwhile, religiosity negatively moderates the attitude in affecting producer behavior. The producer’s behavior positively influenced the SME’s performance. The recommendation given is to socialize the use of environmentally friendly packaging to sell at a premium price targeted to the middle to upper consumer segments.