Data Presentation & Analysis
4.3 Main Analysis
4.3.3 Environmental Apparel Consumption
been further explored.
4.3.2.3 All Independent Variables
Analyzing the influence of all the independent variables on the dependent variable shopping item quantity showed that 50.4% (R2 = 0.504, Sig. = 0.029) of the variance in behavior was explained by these. When this was adjusted for sample size, it fell quite dramatically due to the large quantity of variables but still accounted for 19.5%
(adjusted R2 = 0.195) of the variance in behavior, which can be seen in table one. The only significant variable here was financial resources (B = 0.002), as shown in table five.
As in the case of fashion related behavior, the variable measuring financial resources was under the ability variables which were the ones with the largest explanation of variance in behavior and under this construct it was also the most important of the individual variables. Furthermore, it is in agreement with expectation that consumers with more money would exhibit higher degrees of shopping item quantity. As previously mentioned this may not be easy or even possible to influence. Nevertheless, it is still an important confirmation, as it can be used to predict unsustainable consumption behavior.
measurement, both opinion leader and opinion seeker, self-respect and a sense of accomplishment from the kahle’s list of values, environmental concern and contemporary vs. non-contemporary and orthodox vs. liberal from Malhotra’s self-‐concept scale. The most influential of the variables for the motivational construct were not surprisingly environmental concern (Beta = 0.465), followed by hedonic shopping values (Beta = 0.183). When looking at the variables that were significant in explaining the behavior in question, the data revealed that the most influential variable is whether or not respondents said that they were concerned with the environment (B = 0.560, Beta = 0.465). The data show that a one-‐unit increase in environmental concern produces a 56%
increase in environmental apparel consumption. Thus the more concerned the consumer is with the environment, the more they act to do less harm to the environment. This proves the connection between concern and action with regards to the environment and therefore suggests that increasing knowledge about the state of or threat to the environment from the production and consumption of clothes may lead to more sustainable consumption behavior.
The second most important variable under the motivation construct was hedonic shopping values (B = 0.108, Beta = 0.183), which is also the only variable that proved to be statistically significant for all three dependent variables. This is noteworthy, as it means that consumers enjoying the act of shopping and finding the act itself exciting is explanatory and predictive of both unsustainable behavior, buying more, and at the same time sustainable behavior by consuming in a more sustainable manner. However, buying more and consuming in a sustainable manner are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Even though it can be argued that consuming more is bad for the environment, it is still possible to do so while factoring in the environmental impact of the consumption.
Just like in the case of fashion related behavior, the respondents’ involvement with clothes proved to explain environmental apparel consumption too. However, in the case of the latter, the relationship was negative (B = -‐0.074, Beta = -‐0.144) meaning that as the respondents got more involved with clothes, they display less environmental apparel consumption. Involvement with clothes examines to what extend the actual buying process and clothes affect the consumer (Michaelidou & Dibb, 2006) and it therefore
makes sense that it would be a negative predictor of environmental apparel consumption, as the focus here is on the actual clothes and not the environment. Thus the involvement takes precedence over the effect that consumption and production of clothes has on the world. This seems to be further supported by the importance of acquisition centrality (B
= -‐0.244, Beta = -‐0.139) as a negative predictor of this behavior too. This variable measures how important the actual act of acquisition is to the respondent’s life and therefore can be said to have some overlap with both involvement with clothes and hedonic shopping values. As this is a negative predictor of behavior it means that as the act of acquisition or purchase becomes more important to the consumer, he or she will consume less sustainable apparel, which can be explained by the fact that the consumer now focuses more on the actual act of consumption than on what the consumption means and which consequences it has for the environment.
It is also interesting to find that both opinion leadership and opinion seeking were significant. Opinion leadership (B = 0.146) is a positive predictor of environmental apparel consumption while being an opinion seeker (B = -‐0.141) is a negative predictor of the same behavior. This means that the more influential apparel consumers are on other apparel consumers, the more they are likely to consume environmental apparel and the more they seek out the advise and opinions of others the less likely they are to consume environmental apparel. However, opinion leadership (Beta = 0.135) was over half a time more influential on behavior than being an opinion seeker (Beta = -‐0.081).
Being an opinion leader is most likely a predictor of environmental apparel consumption because it shows that the consumer is self-‐confident and knowledgeable about the product category which he or she influences others in. This would likely be necessary in the case of environmental apparel. At the same time being an opinion seeker the consumer is not likely to be engaged in environmental apparel consumption unless is it because he or she is surrounded by environmentally friendly opinion leaders and even then they might not be consuming apparel with actual regards to the environment but just copying what the opinion leader does. Out of the 15 variables on Kahle’s list of values, two were significant; placing importance on self-respect (B = 0.368) and on feeling a sense of accomplishment (B = -‐0.416). When the importance of self-respect increases in the consumer so does environmental apparel consumption. This can be
explained by looking at the concept of self-respect. Consumers who place an importance on this are motivated to do good things in order to increase their self-respect such as doing good for others including the environment and consuming environmental apparel, as well as choosing not to consume clothing items that are bad for the environment.
Placing importance on a sense of accomplishment, on the other hand, is a negative predictor of this behavior, meaning that as feeling a sense of accomplishment takes on a more central part of a consumer’s life, this same consumer will consume less environmental apparel. This might be because an increase in the importance of feeling a sense of accomplishment means that the respondent is more focused on a specific goal in his or her life, such as work or family, which does not leave any space for the conscious choice in relation to environmental apparel consumption and this therefore diminishes.
Finally, out of the various questions from Malhotra’s self-‐concept scale, on two proved to be of statistical significance (sig. ≤ 0.050). The data showed that consumers who consider themselves as more contemporary vs. non-contemporary (B = -‐0.238) also consumed more environmental apparel or at least in a more environmental way. This variable is therefore a negative predictor of behavior. This is most likely due to environmentalism and sustainability fitting in with what is considered contemporary vs.
non-contemporary. The more modern respondents perceive themselves, the more likely they are to behave in an environmentally friendly way when it comes to fashion consumption. This is worth noting, as it tells something about the likelihood of future generations to adopt environmentally friendly practices, given that is it still a contemporary issue. This goes along with the second finding, which was significant within the items on Malhotra’s scale, namely orthodox vs. liberal values. Here the data showed that the respondents, who considered themselves as more liberal, also engaged in more environmental apparel consumption, which underlines the previous finding. This is interesting, although somewhat obvious, as it indicates a connection with political views and willingness to engage in sustainable consumption practices just as Thøgersen (2010) has mentioned. It can also be explained, as consumers who are more liberal than orthodox are more likely to change their consumption patterns and embrace new practices, such being environmentally friendly and recognizing a need to engage in such behavior.
4.3.3.2 Ability Variables
Moving on to the ability factors, they account for 44.9% (R2 = 0.449, sig. = 0.000) of the variance in environmental apparel consumption behavior and 40.6% when adjusted, see table one. This makes the ability construct by far the most influential in explaining the variance in behavior when looking at the environmental apparel consumption. Looking at table three, three variables proved to be significant (sig. ≤ 0.050) under the ability construct and these included skepticism of environmental product claims, label use and finally (objective) environmental apparel knowledge. Here the most important independent variable is, again not surprisingly Label use (Beta = 0.543), followed by (objective) environmental apparel knowledge (Beta= 0.237).
The most important of the three significant variables was, as mentioned, label use (Beta
= 0.543, B = 1.310). This means that the more the consumer uses environmental or eco-‐
labels when shopping for fashion items, the more they tend to engage in environmental apparel consumption too. This finding noteworthy, as it shows that the implementation of environmental labels actually does lead to an increase in environmental apparel consumption and environmentally friendly behavior in the consumers who uses them.
This in turn speaks to increased awareness of the existing labels and perhaps the introduction of new ones.
The next finding, which was that (objective) environmental apparel knowledge (B = 0.307), predicts environmental apparel consumption is also very interesting. Even though this might seem very apparent, it still proves that increased knowledge of the issues of the current fashion industry and market leads to increased consumption and behavior, which is more friendly to the environment. The reason why the instrument refers to objective knowledge, is because it aims to measure knowledge without directly asking to it. This finding, like the previous, speaks for increasing awareness and information about environmental fashion and apparel to promote more sustainable practices and behavior in consumers. Peattie (2001) however, argues that knowledge may also prevent consumers from purchasing products that are marketed as sustainable because knowledge might enable consumers to notice potential shortcomings in the products or in the given company’s claims of sustainability, thus finding that the product does not meet their expectations. This, however, was not supported by the findings of this
investigation.
The last significant finding under the ability construct was the positive correlation between environmental apparel consumption and consumer’s skepticism of environmental product claims (B = 0.433). This is interesting, due to the fact that it points out that with increased skepticism of environmental product claims come increased environmental apparel consumption. This may seem like an oxymoron but actually it is very likely that increased skepticism leads to increased environmental apparel consumption and behavior because, as consumers become more skeptic they very likely also become more informed and interested, which lead to more environmentally friendly behavior. It is here important to remember that the instrument which measures environmental apparel consumption not only measures actual consumption but also environmentally friendly behavior, such as buying clothes that can be used for a long time or washed at low degrees. Please see appendix one for a full view of the questions in this instrument.
4.3.3.3 Opportunity Variables
As with the other dependent variables, opportunity did not explain a great percentage of the variance in behavior for environmental apparel consumption, as can be seen from table one. This is due to the same reasons as discussed in the sections above. The opportunity construct was however significant and explained 10% (R2 = 0.010, sig. = 0.017) of the variance in the behavior for environmental apparel consumption and 0.7%
(adjusted R2 = 0.007, Sig. 0.017) of the variance when accounted for the sample size.
Again, no single instrument proved to be statistically significant (sig. ≤ 0.050) in predicting behavior, see table four.
4.3.3.4 All Independent Variables
Exploring the regression of environmental apparel consumption with all the independent variables shows that they explain 71.1% (R2 = 0.711, sig. = 0.000) of the variance in behavior and 53.2% (adjusted R2 = 0.532) when adjusted. However, looking at table five, only three proved to be of significance; opinion seeker, environmental concern and label use. Label use (Beta = 0.402) is the overall most important construct. Second is opinion seeker (Beta = -‐0.321), displaying an inverse prediction on behavior. Out of the these
Table 1: Regression summary table.
three variables, label use (B = 0.970) was as previously mentioned the most influential predictor with a beta coefficient of 0.402 vs. the second most influential, opinion seeker (B = -‐0.621) with a negative beta coefficient of -‐0.321. This was in agreement with expectations, as label use is part of the ability construct, which was the most predictive of the MOAB framework and it was also the most influential within the construct itself.
This finding is noteworthy, as previously mentioned, because it shows that labels do have a positive effect and it therefore warrants more focus on this tool when trying to stimulate more environmental and sustainable behavior in connection with fashion consumption. As for the opinion seeker variable, it is also a confirmation of the previous findings, this time under the motivation construct. It is an interesting finding because it shows that independence, which is not seeking out the advice and influence of others, predicts the behavior in question. This knowledge can be used when trying to locate possible change ambassadors during campaigns for sustainable consumption practices.
The last of the significant variables when looking at all independent variable together was environmental concern (B = 0.333). This is again a very interesting finding which is supported by the fact that it was also the most important variable in explaining environmental apparel consumption under the motivation construct. It shows that, as concern for the environment increases so does environmental apparel consumption, which is environmentally friendly behavior in connection with fashion consumption.
This in turn speaks for consumer information about the consequences of current fashion production and consumption practices. .
Table 2: Regression of motivation variables.
Table 3: Regression of ability variables.
Table 4: Regression of opportunity variables.
Table 5: Regression of all independent variables.
