The ecological consumer behaviours in Greece : ten years of research

Abstract

This paper focuses on the examination of the Ecologically Conscious Consumer Behaviour (ECCB) in Greece. Following a combinatorial topology approach, the data of ten years of persistent research studies are further analysed and discussed upon. In overall the findings indicated that the three types of the ECCB, namely the Pro-environmental Purchasing Behaviour (PPB), the Pro-environmental Post-purchasing (PPostPB) Behaviour and the Pro-environmental Activities (PA) are inter-related. Thus, it was concluded that the same people are more or less simultaneously engaged in all pro-environmental behaviours. Pro-environmental purchasers are at the same time recyclers and activists to an extent. It was also found that these behaviours (PPB, PPostPB, PA) are influenced by certain demographical, cognitive, attitudinal and psychographic factors. Greek Ecologically Conscious Consumers (ECCs) were found to be well educated people, who hold relatively high incomes. Evidence has been found too that general environmental knowledge - containing difficult scientific expressions - is not able to describe ECCs, while on the contrary specific environmental knowledge - that focuses on every-day consumers’ activities - is. Also, it has been indicated that general positive environmental attitudes is not a very valid factor to describe pro-environmental behaviours, while a more accurate path to follow is to concentrate upon which negative attitudes formulate the consumers’ environmental unconcern and inhibit their pro-environmental behavioural changes. Further psychographic evidence revealed that Greek ECCs are people with strong social values, who are not that bound with material possessions, who are interested in politics and feel capable of shaping social circumstances rather than being shaped by them. The overall so far picture and the limitations of our ten years of research are also discussed in this paper, while future research directions and implications to the public policy and business are suggested.