Green consumer values: Consumer's lifestyle towards eco-friendly products and purchase intention in the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector

Abstract

Green consumer values are an upcoming trend in today’s developing world since most people are highly concerned about the concept “go green”. The main reason behind that is that present customers pay more attention to eco-friendliness and become more environmentally responsible than past decades because it creates the sustainability of the environment. Over the past few decades, the consumers' green consumer values were not highly considered concept even in fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector. This paper aims to better understand the effect of green consumer values on the consumers' purchase intention in the FMCG sector. It tries to build on consumer lifestyle literature to gain more insights on how these green consumer values, including environmental and health consciousness, affect consumer lifestyle and purchase intentions. The sample consisted of 152 respondents representing consumers in colombo district. The structured questionnaire and partial least squares path modelling (PLS) were used to collect and analyse it. The tested hypothesis on consumer lifestyle was not statistically significant with purchase intention and other two hypotheses on environmental consciousness and health consciousness were statistically significant. The study's findings imply that managers in the corporate world can use this study to increase their competitive advantage as people are presently very concerned about environmental issues. When applying green values, the companies have to comply with the consumers’ needs and wants. Consumers want to recognize themselves with green compliant companies and are willing to pay more for a greener lifestyle. For this reason, green values are not only an environmental protection tool but also a marketing strategy. Further research using both consumer and marketers viewpoints is needed to confirm the present results to better assess possible green value-added process differences.