Investigating Factors Concerning Eco-friendly Product Adoption among Students: Mediating Role of Attitude and Moderating Role of Environmental Concern

Abstract

The increasing level of environmental sustainability has increased the desire to comprehend the dynamics of eco-friendly consumption, especially among consumers of younger age groups. The study explores the factors that affect the intention of students to consume eco-friendly products through the combination of the planned behaviour and the value-belief-norm framework. The research work investigates the role of knowledge of the environment, perceived environmental benefits and perceived product effectiveness affecting the intention to use, with the mediating role of attitude and the moderating role of environmental concern. The research design used was a quantitative cross-sectional study. The data was gathered by use of an online survey conducted on the students of universities and colleges in the northern region of India. The data cleaning on the 550 received responses has yielded 513 valid questionnaires. The reliability and validity of the measurement model were checked with the help of confirmatory factor analysis. The results of structural models showed that the attitude to eco-friendly products was affected by the environmental knowledge, the perception of the positive effect of the environment, and the perceived effectiveness of the product significantly and positively. Attitude proved to be a good predictor of intention to use eco-friendly products and mediated significantly between all perception-based antecedents and intention. Moreover, environmental concern was observed to have a significant moderator effect on the attitude-intention relationship, whereby the association was greater between the students who had a great environmental concern. The results emphasize the key role of the attitudinal mechanisms in the process of converting perceptions into environmentally friendly consumption intention and the value-based factors in enhancing the results. The article also has theoretical implications, giving an extension of TPB with value-oriented constructs and has practical implications that can be used by educators, policymakers, and marketers aiming at encouraging sustainable consumption among students.