Are consumers habitual liars? A quantitative study of factors influencing swedish consumers' purchase intention for sustainable products

Sammanfattning

Overconsumption has become an increasing global challenge in the last decades, followed by an awareness of the need to change consumption behaviors to sustainable purchasing decisions. The purpose of this quantitative study is to create a better understanding of the drivers and their effects on sustainable purchasing behavior. In other words, the factors hypothesized to impact the purchase intention of sustainable products was examined in hope of receiving a greater comprehension of the attitude-behavior gap and what factors play a major role in closing it. The data was collected through an online self-completion questionnaire distributed through the authors' peer networks and university emails. The outcome of this thesis indicates that cost and quality are the product attributes most important to consumers. Furthermore, personal sustainability norm and perceived sustainability knowledge are significant predictors of the purchase intention of sustainable products, while environmental concern did not have a significant effect. Increasing awareness of the moral obligation of consumers and the perceived knowledge the individual claims to have regarding sustainability would be appropriate ways of creating effective marketing communication, in the quest of increasing consumption of sustainable products.