Exploring consumers’ motives and behavioral intention to use green packaging - a positive sign for sustainable consumption behavior in the future

Abstract

Consumers are becoming more and more involved in environmental protection initiatives, and green consumption is the consumer sector's expression of environmentally conscious behavior. In “green consumption”, green packaging is one of the most practical and easily accessible due to its diversity of alternative material and economic price to transform. This study examines consumers' intentions to use eco-friendly packaging by combining the Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 1985) and Goal-Framing (Lindenberg and Steg, 2007) with some extended antecedents. We analyze data from 356 Vietnamese consumers in Ho Chi Minh City by using structural equation modeling. The findings show that while hedonic goals appear to be less significant, gain and normative motives have a beneficial impact on consumer’s choice of green packaging. By highlighting the crucial goal frames that influence consumers' intentions to utilize green packaging, the findings advance theoretical knowledge of sustainable consumer behavior. In the end, we offer managers guidelines regarding the functional requirements to satisfy consumer desires when introducing green packaging. We found that availability of green packaging was an important role to perceived behavioral control, which identified firms as needing to enhance the recognition of green packaging widely to the consumers.