Elsevier

Ecological Economics

Volume 64, Issue 3, 15 January 2008, Pages 542-553
Ecological Economics

ANALYSIS
Sustainable food consumption among young adults in Belgium: Theory of planned behaviour and the role of confidence and values

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2007.03.007Get rights and content

Abstract

This study investigates determinants of sustainable food consumer behaviour in Belgium. To gain a better insight in sustainable consumption, a study was conducted in which attitudes and behaviour as well as the role of individual characteristics like confidence and values related to sustainable products are analyzed. The focus of the analysis is on exploring the influence of determinants as hypothesised by the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) – attitudes, perceived behavioural control, social norms – on sustainable consumption intention in general, and specifically depending on consumer's perceived confidence and personal values. The empirical research builds on a survey with a sample of 456 young adults using a questionnaire and showing an advertisement for hypothetical sustainable dairy products. Stepwise multiple regression models showed that 50% of the variance in intention to consume sustainable dairy was explained by the combination of personal attitudes, perceived social influences, perceived consumer effectiveness and perceived availability. In addition, different levels of confidence and value orientation yield different strengths of the determinants. The findings yield public policy and marketing recommendations for stimulating sustainable food consumption among young adults.

Introduction

In recent years, products incorporating sustainability attributes and claims became increasingly appealing to consumers' values (Conner, 2002, Kletzan et al., 2006). As a result of public interest in quality of life, including quality of the natural environment, the notion of sustainable development has become very important for governments, as well as food industries. The growing consumers' interest in sustainable food production and consumption increases the potential impact of sustainability considerations on consumer purchase decisions, and the potential role of sustainability as a product attribute in consumer's evaluation of products (de Boer et al., 2006).

Sustainability is defined as a combination of economic (profit), ecological (planet) and social (people) aspects. The economic aspect has to do with a fair price for both agricultural entrepreneurs and consumers. The ecological component involves care for the natural environment, including plant and animal production factors, the living environment in general and the quality of life for human beings. The social component finally concerns the matching of production processes with the priorities and needs of the society/citizens (in other words what is social acceptable), as well as an appreciation and support for the primary production sector from the society but also from the government (a sustainability supporting policy).

Many consumers display increasing demands for convenience foods in order to manage time and work more efficiently (cf. Homo economicus who seeks to achieve his objectives with minimal costs, Faber et al., 2002), a trend which is likely to continue as young consumers take their habits into their older age. In addition, a growing segment of consumers consciously buys ethical or sustainable products, such as organic, fair trade, animal friendly, environmental friendly, or locally produced foods1 (Crane, 2001). Sustainable consumption is based on a decision-making process that takes the consumer's social responsibility (cfr. Homo Politicus who tries to consider what is best for society, Faber et al., 2002) into account in addition to individual needs like taste, price, convenience and health (Meulenberg, 2003).

Several studies concentrated on attitudes towards sustainability and sustainable consumption behaviour (Shrum et al., 1995, Verbeke and Viaene, 1999, De Pelsmacker et al., 2003). The best documented case is probably the one of organic foods, with consumer attitude towards organic products being in general more favourable as compared to conventional food products, both among organic and non-organic consumers. Organic products are perceived to be better with respect to taste, quality, safety, impact on health and on the environment, while a more negative attitude is found for the aspects price, appearance, availability and conservation (Cera-Foundation, 2001). In addition, a positive perception prevails for regional and local food products since they have the image of freshness and quality and contribute to the regional economies and identity.

A critical question is the extent to which interested consumers turn their expressed interest into actual purchasing habits, in that even where consumers do have concerns about ‘conventionally’ produced food; their support for alternatives is usually conditional, and quite often determined by price issues. Grunert and Juhl (1995) reported a strong association between environmental attitudes and purchasing frequency in the sense that the more environmentally concerned an individual is, the more likely s/he is to buy organic foods. However, recent research shows that most consumers are prepared to try local foods (at least in principle), but this was usually conditional upon it being measured against issues of price, convenience, accessibility and perceived quality (Weatherell et al., 2003, Vermeir and Verbeke, 2006). Practice shows that most of the ethical labelling initiatives like organic food, products free from child labour, legal logged wood and fair-trade products often have market shares of less than 1% (MacGillivray, 2000). The discrepancy between attitude and behaviour is also called the attitude-behaviour gap: attitudes alone are a poor predictor of marketplace behaviour (Kraus, 1995, Ajzen, 2001). Recent research shows that 52% of consumers were interested in purchasing “earth-sustainable” foods, but did not purchase those foods owing to the perceived barriers of lack of availability, inconvenience, price, habit and trust (Robinson and Smith, 2002). In addition, social responsibility is often not the most dominant criterion during purchase decisions (Boulstridge and Carrigan, 2000). Personal (e.g. low perceived consumer effectiveness, or ignorance of sustainable products) as well as contextual or situational (e.g. lack of sustainable products in local retail outlets) factors may inhibit the purchase of sustainable foods (Diamantapoulos et al., 2003, Vermeir and Verbeke, 2006).

Despite several papers investigating the profile of sustainable consumers, or mapping barriers to adopting more sustainable food consumption patterns (e.g. Shrum et al., 1995, Roberts, 1996), a thorough understanding of the determinants of consumer decision-making towards sustainable food, and the specific role of individual characteristics like confidence and values is missing. The objective of this paper is, first, to explore the predictive value of attitudes, perceived behavioural control and subjective norms in explaining consumer's intention to purchase sustainable food products. Second, the present research aims at investigating the role of individual characteristics such as confidence and personal values in the behavioural intention formation process. The overall aim is to gain a better understanding of sustainable purchase behaviour and to formulate recommendations for stimulating sustainable food consumption among young adults.

Section snippets

Theoretical framework

The theory of planned behaviour (Ajzen, 1985) postulates three conceptually independent determinants of intention: attitude towards the behaviour, subjective norm and perceived behavioural control. Attitude towards the behaviour refers to the degree to which a person has a favourable or unfavourable evaluation or appraisal of behaviour, while subjective or social norms refer to the perceived social pressure to perform or not to perform the behaviour. Behavioural control indicates whether the

Methodology

Survey data were collected through self-administered questionnaires in Belgium. A sample of 456 higher educated young adults in the age group 19–22 years, drawn from the population of Flanders, Belgium, completed an anonymous questionnaire in class. We especially incorporated young adults in the study because they are the consumers of the future, capable of making a difference in the next decades. Furthermore, they are in the end stage of forming their personal identity and developing a

Empirical findings

Regression analysis is performed to analyse the relationships proposed by the TPB, while factor analyses with principal components extraction, are used to describe the constructs. The reliability of the constructs is tested by the Cronbach's alpha internal reliability coefficient. In order to analyse differences in the determinants of behavioural intention depending on confidence and values, respondents are grouped in two categories using median split.

Validity of the TPB

In this study, based on the TPB, the stepwise multiple regression showed that 50% of the variance in intention to consume or purchase sustainable dairy was explained by the combination of attitudes, perceived social influences, perceived consumer effectiveness and perceived availability. Attitudes were the main predictor of behavioural intentions (cfr. Bisonette and Contento, 2001), irrespective of consumers' personal values and their level of confidence in the sustainability claim of the dairy

Conclusion

A substantial number of studies show that consumers value the ethical aspect in a product and that there is a willingness to pay for ethical products. However, consumers' behavioural intention in the marketplace is apparently not consistent with their reported attitude towards products with an ethical dimension. In this study, we tried to go further in the explanation of the attitude/behavioural intention gap by capturing the purchase intention for sustainable food, with dairy products being

References (50)

  • I. Ajzen

    From intentions to actions: a theory of planned behaviour

  • I. Ajzen

    Nature and operation of attitudes

    Annual Review of Psychology

    (2001)
  • I. Ajzen et al.

    Understanding Attitudes and Predicting Social Behaviour

    (1980)
  • R.P. Bagozzi

    Attitudes, intentions, and behaviour — a test of some key hypotheses

    Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

    (1981)
  • M.M. Bisonette et al.

    Adolescents' perspectives and food choice behaviours in terms of the environmental impacts of food production practices: application of a psychosocial model

    Journal of Nutrition Education

    (2001)
  • C. Bontinckx

    Attitudes et compartements de consommation et développement durable, étude qualitative

    (2002)
  • E. Boulstridge et al.

    Do consumers really care about corporate responsibility? Highlighting the attitude-behaviour gap

    Journal of Communication Management

    (2000)
  • S.M. Burgess

    Personal values and consumer research

    Research in Marketing

    (1992)
  • Cera-Foundation

    Biologische land- en tuinbouw: de stille doorbraak voorbij!?

    (2001)
  • R.Y.K. Chan

    Determinants of Chinese consumers' green purchase behaviour

    Psychological and Marketing

    (2001)
  • D.S. Conner

    Expressing values in agricultural markets: an economic policy perspective

    Agriculture and Human Values

    (2002)
  • A. Crane

    Unpacking the ethical product

    Journal of Business Ethics

    (2001)
  • P. De Pelsmacker et al.

    Are fair trade labels good business? Ethics and coffee buying intentions

  • A. Diamantapoulos et al.

    Can socio-demographics still play a role in profiling green consumers? A review of the evidence and an empirical investigation

    Journal of Business Research

    (2003)
  • J. Finegan

    The impact of personal values on judgments of ethical behaviour in the workplace

    Journal of Business Ethics

    (1994)
  • Cited by (734)

    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text