Climate Anxiety Emerges as Essential Driver of Sustainable Buying
A new study pinpoints what actually moves consumers toward sustainable purchases: climate anxiety, religious values, and environmental knowledge work together to shift behavior. For retailers and brands, the finding suggests that messaging about climate urgency—combined with appeals to deeper values—may be more effective than traditional green marketing.
Originaltitel: What drives sustainable consumption behavior? Empirical evidence from a three-stage hybrid analysis incorporating bibliometric, PLS-SEM, and NCA evidence
Promoting sustainable consumption behavior (SCB) is key among the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals. However, due to inconsistent findings, understanding of how to promote these behaviors at the individual level lags behind, revealing an important gap. To address this gap, we adopt a multi-method approach. We first review the literature to identify and test key individual-level drivers of sustainable consumption behavior using bibliometrics (R-studio) with thematic mapping and three field plots (study 1). Extending study 1, study 2 draws on value-belief-norm theory to test the effect of religiosity, climate change anxiety, and pro-environmental knowledge on SCB, alongside the moderating role of psychological ownership (n = 294). To analyze the data, we adopt partial least-squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and necessary condition analysis (NCA). The SEM findings indicate a positive effect of religiosity, climate change anxiety, and pro-environmental knowledge on SCB. The results also suggest that psychological ownership positively moderates the impact of pro-environmental knowledge on SCB. The NCA results suggest that climate change anxiety is a progressively binding constraint, whereas religiosity and pro-environmental knowledge are also necessary conditions but function as baseline enablers in shaping SCB. Overall, this research offers novel understanding of how specific cognitive and moral factors contribute to SCB, raising pertinent implications for marketers and policymakers.