Sustainable Consumer Behaviors: The Effects of Identity, Environment Value and Marketing Promotion

Abstract

As the extreme climate crisis increases, sustainable development is at the forefront of the public mind. However, as one of the major catalysts of sustainable development, sustainable consumer behavior (SCB) is still not being adopted by mainstream consumers. Therefore, this study attempted to find a new way to encourage sustainable consumer behaviors. Based on identity theory, environment value research, and marketing practice, three important factors relevant to SCB are yet to be combined into one model: specifically, moral identity, altruistic values and promotion. Therefore, this study aimed to clarify the relationship between SCB, moral identity and altruistic values and study whether promotion influences the link between SCB and altruistic values. A survey that adopted the previously validated scale was distributed on social media to collect the data. The findings show that: (1) moral self- and group-identity encourage SCB; (2) altruistic values predicts moral self- and group- identity; (3) the relationship between altruistic values and SCB is fully mediated by moral self- and group-identity; (4) promotion does not affect the relationship between altruistic values and SCB. Finally, this study contributes by giving policy makers tools that show how to use identities and values to encourage SCB.