Short Note Peer-Reviewed
Understanding Environmentally Conscious Behaviour Through Environmental Identity
Swinburne Business School, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, VIC 3122, Australia
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Received: 2 August 2021 Accepted: 8 September 2021 Published: 20 September 2021
Abstract
This paper argues that the strongly established connection between identity and consumer behaviour may not be necessarily applicable in examining environmentally conscious behaviour through an identity lens due to several other factors that may especially influence environmental identity formation; (1) the continuously evolving nature of environmental identity in the context of complexities (i.e., political debates, climate change science) of climate change; (2) the challenges of expressing inner connection with nature (i.e., instrumental value vs. intrinsic value); (3) the various cultural and symbolic meanings associated with environmentally conscious behaviour (i.e., functional benefits vs emotional benefits) and (4) different forms of behavioural practices (i.e., environmentally conscious behaviour vs. anti-consumption). Therefore, this paper recommends utilising insights and measurements unique to environmentally conscious behaviour as opposed to that of general consumer behaviour because the antecedents of the former, especially environmental identity projections can be multifaceted.
Keywords
Copyright © 2021
Perera and Johnson. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use and distribution provided that the original work is properly cited.
Cite this Article
ACS Style
Perera, C.R.; Johnson, L.W. Understanding Environmentally Conscious Behaviour Through Environmental Identity. Highlights Sustain. 2022, 1, 1–4. https://doi.org/10.54175/hsustain1010001
APA Style
Perera, C. R., & Johnson, L. W. (2022). Understanding Environmentally Conscious Behaviour Through Environmental Identity. Highlights of Sustainability, 1(1), 1–4. https://doi.org/10.54175/hsustain1010001
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