Attitude towards the Environment and Green Products:Consumers’ Perspective

Abstract

The current rapid growth in the economy and the patterns of consumers’ consumption and behavior worldwide are the main cause of environmental deterioration. As the environment continues to worsen, it has become a persistent public concern in the developed countries and has recently awakens developing countries to the green movement. This paper is essentially exploratory in nature and has two objectives. The first objective is to compare gender with attitudes towards the environment and green products. The second objective is to investigate the relationship between attitude towards the environment and green products. Result from the independent sample t-test shows that there were no significant differences between gender in their environmental attitudes and attitudes on green products. The rotated factor matrix validated the underlying dimensions of environmental attitudes into three major dimensions (environmental protection, government’s role, and personal norm). Results from the multiple linear regression analysis revealed that consumer attitudes on the government’s role and their personal norm towards the environment contributed significantly to their attitude on green product. Further investigation revealed that personal norm was the most important contributor to the attitude towards green product. However, environmental protection did not contribute significantly to consumers’ attitudes on green product.Keywords: Environmental attitude; green products; consumer behaviour; Malaysia