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Different Shades of Green Consciousness: The Interplay of Sustainability Labeling and Environmental Impact on Product Evaluations

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Abstract

The sustainability labeling on the front of a package featured in a print advertisement may influence consumers’ product evaluations and purchase decisions. The findings of this exploratory study suggest that consumers seem to evaluate the sustainability claim more favorably if the advertisement highlights the personal impact on them. Moreover, environmental involvement appears to further moderate the effects of sustainability claims and environmental impact framing. The interactions that emerged in this study suggest that sustainability labeling effects constitute a complex phenomenon that warrants future research.

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Notes

  1. A series of floodlight analyses (Spiller et al. 2013) was conducted to identify regions in the range of environmental involvement (mean-centered) in which the effects of sustainability claims and environmental impacts on dependent measures were significant. Findings indicated that the critical values of environmental involvement for company attitude, purchase intentions, and willingness to pay a premium price were, −.48 (SD = .57), 1.44 (SD = 1.10), and .41 (SD = 1.07), respectively. These results were consistent with the simple slope analyses and are available upon request.

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Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Scot Burton for his valuable comments and guidance.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Marketing & Business Law, Villanova University, Villanova, PA, USA

    Yoon-Na Cho

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  1. Yoon-Na Cho
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Correspondence to Yoon-Na Cho.

Appendices

Appendix 1

Sustainability claim present with the personal impact on the environment:

Sustainability claim absent with the company’s impact on the environment:

Appendix 2

Company attitude

What is your overall attitude towards Colony, the company producing this product?

  1. 1.

    “very unfavorable”–“very favorable”

  2. 2.

    “bad”–“good”

  3. 3.

    “negative”–“positive”

Purchase intentions

  1. 1.

    Assuming you were going to buy a laundry detergent, would you be more likely or less likely to purchase this product? (endpoints: “not likely”–“very likely”)

  2. 2.

    How probable is it that you would consider the purchase of this product, if you were going to buy a laundry detergent? (endpoints: “not probable”–“very probable”)

  3. 3.

    How likely would you be to purchase this laundry detergent, given the information shown on the front of the package? (endpoints: “less likely”–“more likely”)

Willingness to pay a premium price

  1. 1.

    The price of this product would have to go up quite a bit before I would switch to another laundry detergent. (endpoints: “strongly disagree”–“strongly agree”)

  2. 2.

    I am willing to pay a higher price for this product than for other laundry detergents. (endpoints: “strongly disagree”–“strongly agree”)

  3. 3.

    I am willing to pay ______  % more for this product over other laundry detergents. (endpoints: “0 %”–“30 %”)

Environmental involvement

(endpoints: “strongly disagree”–“strongly agree”)

  1. 1.

    I am concerned about the environment.

  2. 2.

    The condition of the environment affects the quality of my life.

  3. 3.

    I am willing to make sacrifices to protect the environment.

  4. 4.

    My actions impact the environment.

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Cho, YN. Different Shades of Green Consciousness: The Interplay of Sustainability Labeling and Environmental Impact on Product Evaluations. J Bus Ethics 128, 73–82 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-014-2080-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-014-2080-4

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