Unraveling the role of material conditions in eco-habitus: Studying eco-friendly energy practices across social classes

Background: The circular economy aims to establish a sustainable system by maximizing and optimizing resources and capabilities, enabling businesses to provide greater value to consumers. Consumers’ perceptions of environmental values, along with their environmental concerns and knowledge, play a crucial role in encouraging efficient and sustainable consumption. Additionally, individuals with strong religious beliefs often exhibit pro-environmental attitudes, which may influence their intentions and behaviors in purchasing environmentally friendly products. Purpose: This study examines the role of eco-friendly factors and Islamic religiosity in shaping sustainable consumption behavior among Muslim women in Indonesia who purchase eco-friendly cosmetic products. Methods: This study employed a conclusive, descriptive, and cross-sectional research design. A total of 218 respondents were selected through purposive sampling. Data were collected through questionnaire distribution and analyzed using Partial Least Squares (PLS) structural equation modeling. Findings: The results indicate that eco-friendly factors—including environmental concern, environmental awareness, environmental knowledge, and environmental values—positively and significantly influence sustainable consumption. However, contrary to expectations, religiosity does not significantly impact sustainable consumption and does not moderate the relationship between sustainable consumption and behavioral intention. Additionally, sustainable consumption positively influences behavioral intention. Conclusion: These results highlight the crucial of environmental awareness and values in fostering sustainable consumption behavior. However, religiosity alone may not be a determining factor in consumers' eco-friendly purchasing decisions. Research implication: This study provides valuable insights for policymakers, businesses, and marketers to develop more effective sustainability campaigns and interventions by focusing on enhancing environmental awareness and values rather than relying solely on religious motivation to promote sustainable consumption.

Drawing on recent research on the psychology of social class, I argue that the material conditions in which people grow up and live have a lasting impact on their personal and social identities and that this influences both the way they think and feel about their social environment and key aspects of their social behaviour. Relative to middle‐class counterparts, lower/working‐class individuals are less likely to define themselves in terms of their socioeconomic status and are more likely to have interdependent self‐concepts; they are also more inclined to explain social events in situational terms, as a result of having a lower sense of personal control. Working‐class people score higher on measures of empathy and are more likely to help others in distress. The widely held view that working‐class individuals are more prejudiced towards immigrants and ethnic minorities is shown to be a function of economic threat, in that highly educated people also express prejudice towards these groups when the latter are described as highly educated and therefore pose an economic threat. The fact that middle‐class norms of independence prevail in universities and prestigious workplaces makes working‐class people less likely to apply for positions in such institutions, less likely to be selected and less likely to stay if selected. In other words, social class differences in identity, cognition, feelings, and behaviour make it less likely that working‐class individuals can benefit from educational and occupational opportunities to improve their material circumstances. This means that redistributive policies are needed to break the cycle of deprivation that limits opportunities and threatens social cohesion.

This study explores who will be prosocial consumers based on the effect of consumers' environmental value on their sustainable consumption after the COVID‐19 lockdown. The study aims to examine (1) the relationship between environmental value and sustainable consumption and (2) compare the pathways between environmental value and sustainable consumption depending on delivery service usage frequency. This study unitizes Structural Equation Modeling to analyze (1) mediation and (2) multi‐group analysis by SmartPLS. Six hundred thirty‐seven respondents are collected from Mass Rapid Transit and Bangkok Mass Transit System stations in Bangkok and nearby shopping malls using a systematic random sample method. Affective and cognitive sustainable consumption mediates the relationship between consumers' egoistic and biospheric environmental concerns and their conative sustainable consumption. There is no significant difference between groups that utilize fewer or more delivery services on the path between environmental concerns and sustainable consumption. This study demonstrates that prosocial consumers with biospheric environmental concerns must engage in affective and cognitive sustainable consumption to engage in conative sustainable consumption. Prosocial consumers who emphasize the environment and sustainability tend to use delivery services less frequently.

Sustainable consumption is becoming an increasingly important aspect of our consumer society. The scarcity of natural resources is a growing concern in many countries. Considering the recent developments related to the promotion of sustainable production and consumption, as well as the introduction of the Climate Action Plan and the Green Deal at the EU level, it is vital to understand the trends of sustainable consumption in individual countries, which may influence overall consumption trends in Europe. The purpose of the article is to analyse the trends of sustainable consumption in small economies with limited natural resources and facing the problem of resource allocation priorities. Sustainable consumption reflects the demand side of sustainable consumption/production. Demand is the most important factor to focus on when planning economic activities, so its trends, in this case, sustainable consumption trends, must be constantly analysed. Exponential smoothing was used to forecast sustainable consumption trends. The research results show that favourable and unfavourable trends in decoupling environmental impact from economic growth and waste generation and management in small economies are forecasted. While resource and energy productivity increases show that small economies have begun to use their resources more efficiently, the demand and consumption of materials (and the associated environmental impact) continue to increase.

Everything Stays the Same while Everything Changes

Our article provides empirical findings for France related to sustainable consumption and what triggers sustainable behavior. We investigate various potential key explanatory variables including social influence and environmental values, among others. Our main contribution is to survey and to analyze a set of consumption practices (rather than the examination of single practices as in most of the literature) for a large sample of more than 3000 households. The survey was conducted in France in 2012. We use cluster analysis to identify and describe the different consumer behavior profiles. This methodology identifies three clusters of consumers characterized by diverse concerns related to the environmental impact of their consumption. Based on these clusters, ordered Logit models are fitted on three levels of sustainable consumption behaviors. Our results emphasize the importance of age, gender, education, environmental concern and peer effects for spurring sustainable consumption. We discuss the role of peer pressure as a major determinant. Learning about sustainable behavior from peers seems to complement changing environmental values and stimulate pro-environmental behavior. Our findings show that local externalities clearly outweigh the global consequences related to the promotion of sustainable consumption behaviors that is, the ability to learn in small networks is critical for the promotion of trust and the exchange of ideas and practices.

We proposed that individuals from upper-class backgrounds are more effective at job search than their working-class counterparts in the white-collar labor market. We further proposed that this is partly because upper-class individuals adopt different job search strategies. Our predictions were tested with a time-lagged multisource survey (Study 1) and a 4-wave, 2-month longitudinal survey (Study 2) of business student job seekers. Study 1 found that parental income strengthened the relationship between job search intensity and job search success and that this interaction was mediated by a less haphazard job search strategy. Parental income also strengthened the relationship between job interviews and job offers. Study 2 mostly replicated these findings while showing that the effects generalize to other facets of class background. Study 2 additionally explored mechanisms for why working-class individuals use a more haphazard job search strategy. Although class background positively predicted social capital and social capital negatively predicted a haphazard strategy, social capital did not mediate the negative relationship between class background and a haphazard strategy. Finally, although working-class individuals use a more haphazard strategy on average, exploratory analyses show that those with high psychological capital start with a more haphazard strategy but progress to a low haphazard strategy within two months-on par with upper-class individuals. Conversely, working-class individuals with low psychological capital maintained a more haphazard approach over time. Our findings add new insights into how individuals can conduct a more effective job search and why class inequality remains so durable. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs) elaborately encompass a global goal for sustainable consumption and production (Goal 12: SDGs), thus providing potential drivers and/or pathways to attaining sustainable consumption. In view of this global goal, this study examined the role of real income per capita, urbanization and especially inbound tourism in domestic material consumption for the panel of OECD countries. The study is conducted for the period of 1995 to 2016 by employing the panel quantile approach. Interestingly, an inverted U-shaped relationship between outbound tourism and domestic material consumption is established across the quantiles, thus indicating that sustainable domestic consumption is achievable after a threshold of domestic material consumption is attained. In addition, achieving sustainable consumption through economic or income growth is a herculean task for the OECD countries because the current reality indicates that income growth triggers higher consumption of domestic materials. However, the results suggest that urbanization is a recipe for sustainable domestic consumption since there is a negative and significant relationship between the two parameters across the quantiles. Nevertheless, the study presents relevant policy for efficient material and resources utilization and that is suitable to drive the SDGs for 2030 and other country-specific sustainable ambitions.

PurposeUnsustainable spending patterns of consumers directly contribute to 30–40% of environmental degradation, mainly in waste. Packaging is a vital part of responding to the main challenges of sustainable food consumption on the global stage. This study aims to investigate how environmental concern and trust in sustainable producers impact the sustainable consumption behaviors of consumers via the mediation of consumer xenocentrism and the moderation of eco-label and country of origin (COO) of buying sustainable packaged foreign food brands.Design/methodology/approachThis study employed a quantitative method. The authors used Smart PLS 3.0 structural equation modeling (SEM) technique for data analysis. Data from the participants were collected through the convenience sampling technique. A total of 343 valid responses were received.FindingsThe results indicate that xenocentrism is an emerging behavior among Pakistani consumers. The authors found that a high degree of environmental concern and trust in sustainable producers are the antecedents of consumer xenocentrism, which leads to sustainable consumption behavior.Research limitations/implicationsThis research highlights the importance of customers’ xenocentric attitudes that lead to sustainable consumption behavior. The research findings provide vital information for researchers, policymakers, academics, practitioners, industry professionals, brand managers and top management, especially in designing the environmental sustainability framework. Although the findings support theory of planned behavior (TPB), future studies can contrast different theories’ contributions to sustainable consumption behavior improvement. Also future researchers may analyze the impact of culture on the association between sustainable consumption and consumer attitudes toward environmental concerns and trust in sustainable producers.Originality/valueThis research contributes to practice and theory, as consumer xenocentrism is a relatively unexplored area of research in developing countries. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this study is the first to examine consumers’ xenocentric attitudes to sustainable consumption empirically.

Purpose of this study was to investigate the sustainability of domestic gas consumption and identify the social factors that affect it. Three questions were asked in this study. 1) How stable is the gas consumption practice at home? 2) What are the elements that affect gas consumption as a sustainable practice?3) What solutions can be offered to increase gas consumption sustainability? After reviewing the research literature and the concepts of sustainable development and sustainable consumption, two categories of factors were identified as predictors of sustainable gas consumption changes. The research strategy is deductive and the explanation was used to investigate the research problem. The approach of this study was quantitative, and the survey method was used for measurement. The data collection tool is questionnaire. Structural validity, face validity and Cronbach's alpha were used to assess the validity and reliability. The statistical population consisted of household subscribers in Mazandaran province. Using systematic random cluster sampling method, 430 individuals were selected as the statistical sample. The findings of the study showed that the level of sustainability of gas consumption by household subscribers was at an average level. After exploratory factor analysis, three dimensions were considered for sustainable gas consumption. Findings showed that and after-sales support and pro-norms had the greatest impact on the dimension of consumer safety. Environmental values and knowledge of gas consumption have the most impact on the dimension of consumer awareness, pro-norms, Environmental values and pre-norms had greatest effects on responsible consumption.

Consumers’ environmental concern is increasing, and consumer attitudes towards sustainable consumption are mainly positive. However, behavioral patterns are not consistent with attitudes. The relationship between attitudes and purchase intentions and attitudes toward sustainable consumption are widely studied phenomena in the literature. There is a gap in the literature on how trust in brands proclaimed sustainable by manufacturers impacts the relationship between attitudes toward sustainable consumption and intention to purchase these products. This study investigates the presumed gap between favorable attitude towards sustainable consumption and intention to purchase sustainable products. The impact of trust in brands proclaimed as sustainable on the relationship between attitudes toward sustainable consumption and purchase intentions will be analyzed. The central theory of this study is based on the theory of reasoned action (Fishbein and Ajzen 1975). In this study, attitudes towards sustainable consumption, measured by environmental concern and price-value relationship perceptions, have been chosen as a subject matter. Sustainable consumption may contribute to the nature of the phenomena that theory of reasoned action attempts to understand, explain and predict. According to this theory, consumers’ intention to purchase sustainable products is determined by their attitudes toward actual sustainable product purchase behavior. Thus, we expect to find positive relationships between attitudes toward sustainable consumption and intention to purchase sustainable products. In examining the relationship between attitudes toward sustainable consumption and purchase intention of sustainable products, the role of trust in brands proclaimed sustainable on this relationship will be analyzed.

A consistent/stable sense of the self is more valued in middle-class contexts than working-class contexts; hence, we predicted that middle-class individuals would have higher self-concept clarity than working-class individuals. It is further expected that self-concept clarity would be more important to one's well-being among middle-class individuals than among working-class individuals. Supporting these predictions, self-concept clarity was positively associated with higher social class. Moreover, although self-concept clarity was associated with higher life satisfaction and better mental health, the association significantly attenuated among working-class individuals. In addition, self-concept clarity was not associated with physical health and its association with physical health did not interact with social class.

Assessment report on NRP subtheme “Energy demand and supply options to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions”

This article explores the effect of cultural orientations on the sustainable household behaviours of Hispanic immigrants and non‐Hispanic Whites in the United States. A model is tested in which the personal‐level cultural orientations of interdependence‐independence determine consumers' environmental value and concern, which in turn, affect sustainable behaviours (recycling, water, electricity and energy conservation). Results from a sample of 338 Hispanic immigrants and 249 non‐Hispanic Whites indicate that interdependence predicts environmental values among non‐Hispanic Whites. For the Hispanic sample, neither interdependence nor independence predict environmental value. In both samples, environmental value is positively associated with environmental concern, which is positively related to sustainable behaviours. The relationships between environmental concern and all four behaviours are relatively weaker among Hispanics compared to non‐Hispanic Whites, suggesting that immigrants have not yet fully embraced mainstream American pro‐environmental ideals and practices. Our study sheds light on cultural differences regarding environmental values and concerns, and implies theoretical and practical recommendations for marketers in the United States.

PurposeSustainable consumption has far-reaching implications globally, with promotion of sustainable consumption also identified as one of the sustainable development goals (SDGs). Hence, there is a need for relevant information to guide consumer buying decisions. Eco-labels have been created to serve as one of the key communication platforms for this purpose, but studies indicate low levels of comprehension. Hence this paper proposes a conceptual framework using established neuroscience theories and principles to address this topic of significance.Design/methodology/approachThe “Simplicity Principle” propagates that simpler explanations find place over complex ones. Also, the Dual System Theory focuses on the two systems, intuitive System 1 and cognitive System 2, used by the brain to process information. We spotted a research gap here and leveraged these theories and drew from several earlier studies to propose a framework that presenting information in a “simple” manner on eco-labels would accelerate sustainable consumption.FindingsSystem 1 works to reduce cognitive process and load on System 2, influencing overall choice and purchase decision. System 2 capacity requires the need to minimize cognitive load through processing simpler messages. Quick processing of information by System 1 generates impressions, attention and attitude. Once accepted by System 2, these often remain unchanged unless necessary and invariably turn into beliefs and voluntary action. Simplicity leverages speed and effortless processing ability of System 1, reducing effort of cognition by System 2 and enabling a decision (to purchase “green”).Practical implicationsSustainability and sustainable consumption are matters of social and environmental concern and significance. This framework proposes the need for policymakers and businesses to consider adopting the “simplicity” approach in promoting sustainable consumption through bridging the vital gap in the understanding of eco-labels by consumers. There are implications and opportunities for researchers to conduct empirical research across different categories to validate this framework.Originality/valueWhile several methods have been explored and implemented, given the significance of sustainability and sustainable consumption, eco-labels suffer from lack of comprehension, thus affecting adoption by consumers. Applying fundamental neuroscience principles of “simplicity” seems to have been overlooked so far toward addressing this gap. This framework proposes that applying “simplicity” to stimuli such as eco-labels and communications be considered to address and correct the situation and help to accelerate sustainable consumption.