Why Consumers Buy Green

Increasingly, consumers are becoming more knowledgeable about the environment and reflecting this knowledge in their decisions to buy green products. While previous research on the topic has generally examined green consumption related to a single product label, numerous questions exist about why consumers choose various green products and services. We address these concerns by examining individuals’ actual green consumption as it relates to their environmental knowledge and personal affect towards the environment. These relationships are studied for a sample of more than 1,200 UK residents using multiple regression techniques. We show that individuals’ total green consumption is related to their environmental knowledge and personal affect towards the environment. These findings have important implications to policy-makers and businesses alike as greater efforts are made to encourage more widespread green consumption