Economic and Environmental Sustainability through Green Composting: A Study among Low-Income Households

Abstract

Climate change hinders economic growth across the globe, whereas green products and/or the adoption of green practices can effectively mitigate the deteriorating conditions of climate. A large proportion of the world population is living in remote areas with low income, and they should be included in the mitigation efforts to reduce the damaging effects of climate change. Therefore, this study intends to examine the intentions and behaviors towards green composting among low-income rural households to generate income, improve agricultural productivity, and reduce dependency on chemical fertilizers. This study adopted a cross-sectional research design and used structured interviews to collect quantitative data from 420 low-income households living in rural areas in Peninsular Malaysia. This study adopted the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and extended the TPB by embedding the constructs of perceived benefits and eco-literacy into the attitude towards the environment, normative beliefs by extending the subjective norms, and perception of startup resources by extending the perceived behavioral control. The study outcomes revealed that eco-literacy and perceived benefits had a significantly positive effect on attitude towards the environment; normative belief on subjective norms; perception of startup resources on perceived behavioral control; attitude towards the environment on subjective norms; perceived behavioral control on intention towards green composting; and intention towards green composting on green composting adoption behavior. The findings may serve as a guideline to policymakers for the adoption of composting, which can mitigate environmental issues in addition to generating economic activities for low-income residents in Peninsular Malaysia. The study’s limitations and future research opportunities are reported as well.