The Impact of Knowledge on Consumer Behaviour Towards Sustainable Apparel Consumption

Abstract

The concept of sustainability in apparel involves designing, manufacturing and consuming of products with the consideration of environmental and social impacts specifically. Today, apparel retailers do not only compete to offer a variety of goods to the consumers, but also compete to implement sustainability into their business models. From the consumers’ perspective, the ever increasing launch of environmentally friendly products/brands manufactured with an understanding of corporate social responsibility is encouraging them to take a more active role in sustainability via their apparel purchasing. As a result of the increased awareness, consumers are more likely to purchase sustainable products; however, knowledge is the key issue triggering the consumers towards sustainability in apparel purchasing. That is to say; if consumers know more about sustainability, then they are more likely to purchase sustainable apparel products. This chapter deals with the empirically testing of a model developed for the investigation of consumers’ behaviour towards sustainable apparel consumption including the constructs of knowledge of environmental issues, knowledge of social issues, motivation for environmental responsibility, attitude toward green brand and purchasing intention. A survey was conducted among 796 participants in Turkey. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted to test the validity of the items of each construct, and structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to estimate the relationships between the constructs. The results revealed that motivation for environmental responsibility is strongly correlated with the consumers’ attitude toward green brand. Moreover, knowledge of consumers about environmental issues was found to have a significant impact on purchasing intention. On the other hand, knowledge of social issues was found to have an insignificant effect on consumers’ sustainable apparel purchasing intention.