Ecological behaviour in times of crisis and economic well-being through a comparative longitudinal study

Highlights

• The economic context influences ecological behaviour (green activism (GA) and green purchasing (GP)) and the effect of psychographic factors (PF), environmental information (EI) and the marketing mix on such behaviour.

• Psychographic factors (PF) have a positive influence on ecological behaviour, and that influence is stronger in times of economic crisis.

• The environmental information (EI) available has a positive influence on pro-environmental attitudes, and that influence is stronger in times of economic crisis.

• The influence of the variables of the marketing mix for green products (product, price, promotion and place) differs in times of economic well-being and economic crisis.

• Green activism (GA) affects green purchasing (GP) but does not act as a mediator between psychographic factors (PF) and green purchasing (GP).

Abstract

There are few studies on the impact of economic cycles on green purchasing (GP) and green activism (GA). This study investigates whether times of well-being and crisis have different effects on internal factors (psychographic factors (PF), motivations, attitudes and perceived consumer effectiveness (PCE)) and external factors (environmental information and marketing mix) that influence ecological behaviours (GA and GP). To that end, a longitudinal analysis is carried out in Spain distinguishing between times of economic crisis (2008–2012) and times of well-being (2014–2019). Our findings show a clear influence of the economic context, which acts as a moderating variable in the link between internal and external factors and ecological behaviour. PF and GA influence GP, and that influence is more pronounced in times of economic crisis. The PF with the greatest influence on GA and GP in times of crisis is motivation, followed by PCE, while in times of well-being context the effects of both these top factors are similar. Within marketing variables, product and price have more influence on GP than promotion and place in times of economic crisis, and price has no effect in times of well-being. The influence of environmental information (EI) is also greater in times of crisis than in times of well-being. Thus, during economic crises the dissemination of EI among consumers plays an important role in environmental attitudes, which in turn influence GP positively. However, high prices of green products affect GP negatively in times of crisis, which could explain the lower levels of GP found. These findings are useful for public bodies, companies and educational institutions, which need to take the economic cycle into account when developing actions and strategies to encourage ecological behaviour.

Introduction

Concern for the environment and for sustainability has been extensively researched (Yin et al., 2018; Zhang and Dong, 2020). A gap between pro-environmental attitudes and green consumption remains (Costa et al., 2021), despite the fact that consumers are placing increasing importance on the environment (Eurobarometer, 2020), and more and more companies are marketing green products (International Trade Centre, 2019). Understanding the main factors that influence green purchasing (GP) is therefore useful in helping organisations develop strategies for the production and marketing of green products (Dangelico and Vocalelli, 2017).

A study conducted in Spain in 2018 (OCU, 2020) shows that people who are environmentally aware incorporate sustainable habits into their day-to-day lives more easily. These results are ratified by the ONEY study (2020), which reveals that half the population of Spain have made changes in their consumer habits in the last three years in order to reduce their environmental impact.

Nonetheless, green consumer behaviour is a complex phenomenon that is difficult to define (Zhang and Dong, 2020). It generally involves motivational conflicts that stem from the fundamental incompatibility of collective goals related to environmental protection and the personal benefits of individual consumers (Moisander, 2007), and from the great number of internal and external factors involved in such behaviour (Liobikienė and Bernatonienė, 2017). Tensions have been shown to exist between people's internal variables and those that are external to them (He et al., 2021). This explains, in part, why environmentally minded people do not consume green products for collective contextual and environmental reasons (Røpke, 2009). As in many other areas, the timing of awareness, knowledge acquisition, internalisation and implementation of ecological behaviour patterns does not always go hand in hand with the environmental consequences that such behaviour entails (Carayannis and Campbell, 2012).

Green consumption is described as a process that is strongly influenced by internal consumer variables, and is complex, diverse and context-dependent (Peattie, 2010). Thus, it is a behaviour that is impossible to capture unidimensionally (Kollmuss and Agyeman, 2002).

It is thus important to better understand the profile of green consumers from the perspective of business, institutions (governments, universities, etc.) and society. Understanding the profile of such consumers is essential for companies to offer products suited to their needs and to better segment their target market; knowing this profile will enable institutions to legislate and promote actions that improve ecological behaviour; it will also enable universities to provide the necessary information and knowledge to students, both as consumers and as the generation that will one day lead organisations and institutions in regions and countries, so that they can identify the impact of their actions and act accordingly.

Classical behavioural theories and recent research identify several variables related to ecological behaviour: 1) internal psychographic factors such as attitude (Ajzen, 1991), perceived consumer effectiveness (PCE) (Ellen et al., 1991) and motivation (He et al., 2021); and 2) external factors such as the environmental information available (Ritter et al., 2015) and the marketing mix of green products (Shabbir et al., 2020).

However, most of the above papers examine the relationship between ecological behaviour and its predictors at a particular point in time. Few studies take a longitudinal perspective to address how the economic context moderates the relationships between ecological behaviour and the above factors. Therefore, following classifications drawn up in previous research (Joshi and Rahman, 2015; Liobikienė and Bernatonienė, 2017; Zhang and Dong, 2020), this work seeks to identify the influence of internal and external factors on ecological behaviour as a function of economic context.

To that end, we take into account Inglehart's theory of Post-materialism (1983, 1995), which suggests that the growing public concern over environmental issues is due to a shift from materialistic values (related to economic aspects of people's life) to post-materialistic values (which include environment protection) which are associated with industrialised or developed countries. Accordingly, consumers support environmental issues only after they reach a certain level of economic well-being (Franzen and Vogl, 2013). On the other hand, environmental protection is demanded in periods of economic well-being, but during recessions economic needs may become more relevant, as suggested by Inglehart (1995), and shadow environmental behaviours. In fact, some studies reveal a reduction in GP behaviours during the global crisis related to the high prices of green products (Tsay, 2009; Tilikidou and Delistavrou, 2014). Others point out that GA behaviours (saving water and energy, recycling) increase (Ivlevs, 2019). However, most of the few publications that analyse the effect of the economic context consider a single point in the time (a period of well-being or a crisis), which makes comparisons impossible. In addition, there is a lack of studies that consider at the same time the influence of the economic cycle on the internal and external factors which are conventionally supposed to affect GA and GP. It is therefore necessary to identify how these factors could be modified by the economic context and how they could influence ecological behaviour in order to give business managers and politicians guidelines for action. This paper thus seeks to shed light on these issues.

We believe that this paper makes three main contributions to academic work in this field: 1) it addresses a line which has received little analysis, i.e. the longitudinal study of ecological behaviour, considering both the purchase of green products, certain environmental activist behaviours and their predictors; 2) it provides empirical evidence on the mediating influence of environmental activist behaviour (recycling and sustainable mobility) on GP; and 3) it incorporates a little-studied factor in the form of the moderating effect of the economic context (period of economic crisis vs. economic well-being) on ecological behaviour and its predictors, based on the theory of Post-materialism.

The research is framed in fieldwork surveying master's degree students (future leaders and managers) between 2008 and 2012 -in the midst of the major economic crisis in Spain- and 2014 and 2019 -when the country had officially exited the crisis-. That makes this one of the few studies to address ecological behaviour and its different determinants longitudinally. First of all we analyse the influence of internal factors (PF) and external factors (EI and marketing mix) on ecological behaviour (GA and GP), and then the moderating effect of the economic context on those relationships. The data are analysed with structural equation modelling (SEM) using Smart PLS, due to its applicability for demonstrating structural relationships in complex models (Chin et al., 2003).

The paper is organised as follows: Section 2 presents a review of the literature related to the different internal, external and economic factors and their relationship with ecological behaviour, and sets out the hypotheses to be tested in the empirical study. Section 3 explains the methodology and data collection. Section 4 contains the results. Section 5 presents a discussion of those results. Finally, Section 6 presents the main conclusions and management suggestions and points out some limitations of the study and future lines of research.