Pro-Environmental Consumption : Direct and Moderating Effects on Subjective Well-Being as a Proxy for Utility

This paper examines the direct and moderating effects of pro-environmental consumption on subjective well-being and tests whether this type of decision could be explained as a utility-maximizing choice under welfare economics, or it is subject to systematic deviations using three waves (2014, 2019, 2020) of the Aspects of Daily Life dataset, an annual multipurpose sample survey in Italy. Pertinent literature provides evidence for positive and significant effects for various pro-environmental consumption ranges; however, studies describing this relationship and drawing comparisons based on specific dimensions are limited. Apart from evaluating this relationship following the techniques and models introduced in previous literature, we built two composite indicators representing (1) pro-environmental consumption preferences for the products with higher environmental efficiency which was labelled as “pro-active behaviour”, and (2) sustainable choices characterized as to avoid or less frequently engage in consumption decisions having negative ecological externalities which were labelled as “avoidance behaviour” based on the apropos PEC variables. We found that the former has a stronger effect on subjective well-being compared to the latter. Furthermore, we tested and obtained the results revealing that perceived pollution negatively influences life satisfaction and engaging in more frequent sustainable consumption has a positive role in moderating this relationship