Structural Equation Model for Environmentally Conscious Purchasing Behavior

Abstract

In this study, the effect of environmental concern, attitudes and behaviors of the university students on the environmentally conscious purchasing behavior was investigated with the help of Structural Equation Model (SEM). SEM is an effective data analysis tool that expresses the complicated causative relations between the latent variables. In this study, we collected the data from 400 university students by means of a survey. The results of this research showed that environmental attitudes, environmental behavior and green product awareness have a positive effect on environmentally conscious purchasing behavior. The developed model showed that, environmental concern explains 48% of the variation in the environmental attitudes and 28% of the product recovery awareness; environmental attitudes and product recovery awareness explain 55% of green product awareness; environmental attitudes explains 44% of the variation in the environmental behavior; environmental attitudes, green product awareness and environmental behavior explain 74% of the variation in the environmentally conscious purchasing behavior.