Business Strategy and the Environment

Bus. Strat. Env. (2013)

Published online in Wiley Online Library
(wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/bse.1821

Why Eco-labels can be Effective Marketing Tools:

Evidence from a Study on Italian Consumers
F. Testa,1* F. Iraldo,1,2 A Vaccari3,4 and E. Ferrari4,5
Institute of Management – Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy
1
2
IEFE – Institute for Environmental and Energy Policy and Economics, Bocconi University, Milan, Italy
3
University of Ferrara, Ferrara, Italy
4
Indica srl – Environmental Consultant Company, Ferrara, Italy
5
IRS – Institute for Social Research, Bologna, Italy

ABSTRACT
An emerging topic in environmental management studies is the role of eco-labels in guiding
consumers in their purchasing choices. In order to contribute to the current debate on this
topic, this research paper aims to assess, through a quantitative analysis, whether the knowl-
edge, awareness and information that consumers gather on the environmental impact of a
product through an eco-label can stimulate an eco-friendly behavior. Moreover, we assess
whether general attitudes in purchasing behaviors determine a personal attitude toward
ecological consumption. The findings from this study, which is based on a large dataset of
Italian consumers, highlight a significant role of eco-labels in increasing the consumer’s per-
ceived behavioral control, unlike loyalty in brand and in store, which do not exert a significant
influence. Practical implications for green business strategies emerge. Copyright © 2013
John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment

Received 11 May 2013; revised 17 July 2013; accepted 23 July 2013

Keywords: ecological behavior; eco-label; green consumer; green marketing

Introduction

O
UR SENSE OF QUALITY OF LIFE AND ITS UNDERLYING ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL VALUES ULTIMATELY DEPEND
on the structure of our systems of production and consumption and, more specifically, on how the
markets can guarantee the achievement of such desirable objectives. Since the first global conference
on human environment (Stockholm 1972), scientific and political debates have considered systems of
consumption and production as a potential threat to human survival: climate change, loss of natural resources,
extinction of species and environmental damage caused by emissions and waste could in fact result from
unsustainable patterns of consumption and production.
Therefore, the role of consumers in such a scenario becomes crucial in guiding the production paths (Leonidou
et al., 2011; Carrete et al., 2012), since these can directly influence the environmental impact of a product in the
phases of use and end of life (way of functioning, separation of waste, collection, recycling), and exert pressures
on producers to take environmental criteria into account starting from the design and production processes (by
requesting environmentally friendly products).

*Correspondence to: F. Testa, Institute of Management – Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy. E-mail: f.testa@sssup.it

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment
 F. Testa et al.

Ecological behaviors in purchasing choices have been deeply investigated by marketers and scholars, especially by
focusing on the potential predictors of green choices. A significant amount of literature has analyzed the impact of
internal factors such as attitude on environmental concerns (Paco et al., 2009; Ramayah et al., 2010; Aman et al.,
2012), knowledge on product environmental impacts (D’Souza et al., 2007; Moisander, 2007; Ha and Janda,
2012) etc. Other streams of research focused on the effect consumer demographic characteristics have on the prob-
ability of choosing green products (Tikka et al., 2000; Mostafa, 2007; Chen and Chai, 2010), the role of trust
towards external stakeholders (Darnall et al., 2012) and the reasons leading consumers to choose eco-labeled prod-
ucts (Loureiro et al., 2001; Brécard et al., 2009; Perrini et al., 2010).
One of the relevant and emerging topics in this field is the role of eco-labels and their effectiveness in guiding the
consumers’ choices. Ecolabels can be defined as claims stating that a product has particular environmental proper-
ties and features (De Boer, 2003). Consumers often rely on advertising and other corporate messaging to inform
their choices. Today, greenwashing is undermining confidence in such advertising (Peattie and Crane, 2005). Sur-
veys carried out at EU level provide evidence that confidence is progressively decreasing, with low percentages of
consumers trusting green information from businesses (Eurobarometer, 2011). Without confidence in the advertis-
ing claims, consumers are reluctant to exercise the power of their green purchasing, as they no longer know who or
what to believe. This significantly damages the virtuous circle of companies promoting their green products, and
consumers choosing them over non-green products, which is what encourages companies towards investing greater
resources in efficiency and competitiveness, meanwhile reducing their environmental impacts (Iraldo et al., 2013).
In order to contribute to the current debate on this topic, our research aims to assess through a quantitative anal-
ysis whether the information that consumers gather on a product’s environmental impacts through an eco-label
actually stimulates an ecological behavior, and whether general attitudes in purchasing behaviors determine a per-
sonal attitude toward ecological consumption. By using a large dataset of Italian consumers collected within the Life
PROMISE project, we tested the following hypotheses: (i) consumers with broader knowledge on eco-labels are
more likely to buy green products, and (ii) the consumer’s attitudes towards price, quality, health, brand and store
loyalty can exert an influence on the likelihood of buying green products. The paper is organized as follows. First, it
provides an overview of the main findings in literature concerning our hypotheses. In the subsequent section, it
describes the data set and the estimation methodology. Next it presents the statistical results, and in the final section
it closes with some indications for future research and managerial implications.

Knowledge and Information to Support Ecological Behaviors

Scholars and marketing practitioners agree upon the reliability of the theory of reasoned action/planned behaviors
developed by Ajzen and Fishbein (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975; Ajzen, 1985) to predict green choices in purchasing
behaviors (Kalafatis et al., 1999; Gotschi et al., 2010; Abdul Wahid et al., 2011; Aman et al., 2012). The first version
of this model identified the intention as a fundamental predictor of a behavior, which is, in turn, a function of the
attitudes towards the behavior and subjective norms. Then, Ajzen and Fishbein added a new dimension, the per-
ceived behavioral control, which can be summarized as the ability of a person to perform a given behavior and which
depends by several internal and external factors such as ability, level of information and opportunity.
Based on these theories, several studies have deeply investigated internal factors which influence the ecological
behavior of individuals by mainly focusing on environmental concerns and environmental knowledge. The first fac-
tor, environmental concern, is defined as ’the level of emotion and commitment towards environmental issues’
(Aman et al., 2012); the more concerned consumers are towards the environment, the stronger is their intention
to purchase a green product. However, a consistent body of evidence highlights contrasting findings on this relation
(Diamantopoulos et al., 2003; Paco et al., 2009; Ramayah et al., 2010). Although the information flow has rapidly
increased the great amount of knowledge on the unsustainability of our consumption and production patterns
and consequently the concern of individuals towards environmental issues, this does not always determine an
eco-friendly consumption behavior (Pedersen and Neergaard, 2006). For instance, 95% of EU citizens feel that
protecting the environment is important to them personally, and 87% of them believe that they themselves can play
a part in helping to protect the environment, but only 17% usually buy more environmentally friendly products

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment Bus. Strat. Env. (2013)
DOI: 10.1002/bse
Why Eco-Labels can be Effective Marketing Tools

(Eurobarometer, 2011). This could be explained by the fact that the increased tendency of a more concerned con-
sumer to buy green products could be counterbalanced by a lower proneness to consume (Peattie, 2001).
Furthermore, environmental knowledge has been analyzed as a significant predictor of green purchasing inten-
tion. According to D’Souza et al. (2007), environmental knowledge can be distinguished in two forms: one is a gen-
eral knowledge on the current state of the environment that can orient the action of people in an environmentally
conscious way (Moisander, 2007) and may be considered a determinant of subjective norms (Ha and Janda,
2012); the other one is the consumer’s knowledge in the product itself being produced in an environmentally
friendly way, which can enhance the ability of a person in pursuing a ’green’ consumption behavior and which,
therefore, increases their perceived behavioral control. For instance, the study by Michaud and Llerena (2011), which
used experimental auctions to analyze the willingness to pay for remanufactured products, found that consumers
who are well informed on product environmental attributes are more likely to choose ecological products.
Focusing on a general knowledge of environmental issues, a study by Ha and Janda (2012), using data from a
sample of 202 shoppers for electrical appliances and small electronic products, found a positive correlation between
environmental awareness and subjective norms, which, in turn, had affected environmental behaviors. Similarly,
Tilikidou (2007) carried out an extensive survey involving 400 Greek consumers and found a positive correlation
between environmental knowledge/concern and ecological purchasing behavior. Still, Darnall et al. (2012) analyzed
data from 1500 British consumers and showed that personal knowledge of climate change was associated with
greater amounts of total green consumption. Yet, there is contrasting evidence in the literature, which underlines
how a general environmental knowledge is not always a sufficient condition to determine a green consumption-
oriented behavior (see for instance Schahn and Holzer, 1990; Laroche et al., 2001). Thus, in order to allow ever
more informed consumers to make conscious and reasoned choices, knowledge on environmental performance
of products and labels providing appropriate and accurate information also appears to be a fundamental require-
ment (Minton and Rose, 1997).

The Role of Eco-labels

One of the relevant market failures that may limit consumers’ choice in favor of green products is represented by
the so-called ’information asymmetries’ in transactions, in different phases of the value chain, when economic
agents do not have information about the environmental benefits, cost savings and business opportunities enabled
by resource efficiency or better environmental performance. In particular, if producers do not provide complete, cor-
rect and easy-to-understand information on the lifetime environmental performance of their products, and if it is
costly and time consuming for consumers to acquire that information, this asymmetry may lead to greener products
not being purchased (Karna et al., 2001). This problem is especially caused by misleading claims on environmental
performance of products on the final market, which clearly prevents consumers from fully deploying their potential
in terms of green product demand (Kangun et al., 1991; Banerjee et al., 1995).
In detail, this problem has two different facets: on one hand, companies are increasingly and significantly mak-
ing use of green claims in advertising their products (Testa et al., 2011); on the other hand, consumers often believe
that these claims are not reliable and, because of this, they are not orienting their purchasing decisions towards
greener products (Banerjee and Solomon, 2003; Oates et al., 2008).
There is considerable evidence showing that this is increasingly happening in the EU market. The last decade has
witnessed a remarkable increase in advertisements containing environmental claims, as companies have become
more eager to appeal to the growing number of environmentally conscious consumers. This has led to a wide dis-
semination of green messages on the market, as shown by a series of recent studies (see for instance Mogele and
Tropp, 2010; Leonidou et al., 2011; Testa et al., 2011).
However, despite the increasing importance of environmental marketing, consumers remain skeptical about en-
vironmental claims made in advertisements (Peattie and Crane, 2005). A 2008 survey by Burst Media shows that
only about 20% of the respondents state they ’always’ believe green claims made in advertisements. Furthermore,
a survey by the 2011 GFK Green Gauge Report found that 39% of consumers stated that business claims about the
environment were not accurate. Again, about 60% of the 2011 respondents stated business and industry were not
fulfilling their responsibility towards the environment. The top-ranking reasons behind consumer skepticism
towards green claims of companies were lack of credibility and unclear messages (Eurobarometer, 2011). Indeed,

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment Bus. Strat. Env. (2013)
DOI: 10.1002/bse
 F. Testa et al.

the mushrooming of vague and confusing claims apparently undermined the role that eco-labels have in supporting
the green intentions of consumers. This tool should allow consumers to easily and confidently understand the en-
vironmental features of a product and to identify the best performing product in terms of environmental quality
(Chamorro and Bañegil, 2006). The distortive effect generated by misleading claims could be avoided by the imple-
mentation of widely accepted and recognized certification schemes, with public and shared rules, which would
assure consumers credible and clear information. Accordingly, the aim of our study is to analyze the capability of
these kinds of eco-label such as the EU Ecolabel and the FSC – Forest Stewardship Council – certification scheme
in supporting consumer choice towards environmentally friendly products.
Previous studies have mainly considered the purchase of certified products on behalf of consumers as a measure
of their level of appraisal (Loureiro et al., 2001; O’Brien and Teisl, 2004; Sammer and Wüstenhagen, 2006; Brécard
et al., 2009; Perrini et al., 2010), but limited consideration was given to whether the knowledge of these labels truly
helped consumers to assume a green behavior. Based on this discussion, the following hypotheses are proposed.

H1: Consumers with greater knowledge of the EU Ecolabel are more likely to buy green products.

H2: Consumers with greater knowledge of the FSC certification are more likely to buy green products.

Purchasing Attitudes and Green Consumption

In marketing studies, attitude is defined as ’an individual tendency to carry out an action or towards an object or an
idea’ (Kotler, 1994). It could be innate or built by experience and information, and it can be influenced by individual
beliefs and attributes that a product possesses (Mowen, 1993). Attitudes contribute to the definition of a person’s
behavioral model and, as a consequence, of her/his choices. Each person will tend towards those situations to which
s/he possesses more attitudes and which allow achievement of higher satisfaction.
According to Jacoby and Kyner (1973), loyalty, which is a repeated purchasing behavior, can be treated as an at-
titude focusing on the evaluative psychological process that leads the consumer to reproduce the same behavior.
It is not, therefore, determined by the inertia of a consumer who repeats the same behaviors without a real motive
but rather ’a result of brand commitment or a favorable attitude towards the brand’ (Odin et al., 2001).
Loyalty concerns a repurchase from the same brand (Jacoby and Kyner, 1973) or in the same store (Corstjens and
Lal, 2000) and lays on the concept of trust between consumer and producer/seller (Singh and Sirdeshmukh, 2000).
Perrini et al. (2010) define trust as the ’truster’s expectation that the trustee is willing to keep promises and fulfill
obligations’. It is based on a lack of knowledge and information that are compensated by the belief on behalf of
the truster that the trustee has interest, ability or a shared-values background to realize satisfactorily the required
activities. Because of the broader selection and information available to customers, customer loyalty has been
slightly declining in past decades (Sivadas and Baker-Prewitt, 2000), and perhaps it will only be preserved by mar-
ket-share leaders (Dekimpe et al., 1997).
Theoretically, ecological behaviors are strongly based on the concept of trust, especially when there are no control
systems in place (Schoorman et al., 2007) and when a product’s environmental performance is not linked to the use
phase (not in the case of energy-using products) and cannot be directly evaluated or experienced by the consumer. In
such cases, however, the element of trust is better guaranteed by an eco-label or by other environmental information
on packaging, rather than by the level of trust towards a brand or a store. For instance, a work by Shrum et al. (1995)
analyzing data on 4000 US consumers found that brand loyalty was not a significant predictor of green consumption.
In contrast, Sammer and Wüstenhagen (2006) revealed that the brand in the washing machine market also played a key
role in the purchasing choices of highly energy efficient products. This leads us to formulate the following hypotheses.

H3: Brand loyal consumers are less likely to buy green products.

H4: Store loyal consumers are less likely to buy green products.

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment Bus. Strat. Env. (2013)
DOI: 10.1002/bse
Why Eco-Labels can be Effective Marketing Tools

Price and quality sensitivity also represent two other important attitudinal variables to design the profile of green
consumers (D’Souza et al., 2007). D’Souza et al. (2006) identified two segments of green consumers who consider
price and quality as unimportant factors in their purchasing decision, as they are willing to pay a premium price for
green products, even if the quality is lower compared with similar products. These findings are confirmed by several
research and institutional surveys where environmentally concerned consumers declared themselves to be willing to
pay more for products with a lower impact on the environment (Laroche et al., 2001; Loureiro et al., 2002; Rowlands
et al., 2003; Michaud et al., 2013). In contrast, the study mentioned above carried out by Shrum et al. (1995) had
found that green consumers were price conscious and paid attention to shopping, whereas McCluskey and Loureiro
(2003) found that consumers needed to perceive high quality in a green product to recognize the premium price.
From a different perspective, the current perception of ’product quality’ can be seen as a concept that also includes
environmental and social attributes (Jahn et al., 2005). The contrasting evidence on the role of price and quality sen-
sitivity on ecological behaviors allows us to formulate the following hypotheses.

H5: Price-sensitive consumers are less likely to buy green products.

H6: Quality-sensitive consumers are more likely to buy green products.

Attitudes towards health promotion are linked with environmental concerns and significantly affect environmen-
tal behavior as well as green purchasing (Rundmo, 1999). This association prominently emerges in purchasing of
food products, where health and environmental issues are strongly interrelated. For instance, Loureiro et al. (2001)
found that organic foods are more desirable when food safety, the environment and children’s needs are also con-
sidered. In order to also test this relation for non-food products, we formulated the last hypothesis.

H7: Health-sensitive consumers are more likely to buy green products.

Methods
Survey Data
To evaluate our hypotheses we relied on data collected from an online survey that was developed and administered
by ANCC–COOP, a retailers association and delegation of the Legacoop consumers’ cooperatives consisting of po-
litical and union members, which in Italy numbers approximately 7 205 497 associates, who are leaders in retailing,
within the PROMISE (Product Main Impacts Sustainability through Eco-communication) project. Focusing on con-
sumers, the project carried out a set of actions (i) to verify the existence of different levels of information and the
perception towards green products, (ii) to support consumers to unequivocally identify and recognize a ’green prod-
uct’ in all its forms, preventing the spread of the greenwashing phenomenon, (iii) to identify the communication
tools potentially able to involve and persuade consumers towards sustainable purchasing choices and (iv) to test
and apply an innovative and concrete communication plan aimed at promoting behavioral change.
At the end of the communication campaign foreseen by the project, we performed a survey to measure the effec-
tiveness of the plan and to evaluate potential environmental benefits deriving from the communication and infor-
mation activities promoted by PROMISE.
The data were collected through an online questionnaire sent to the registered users of the Coop website, who
can be considered a relevant and representative subset of consumers; these consumers were registered website
users, who, as such, had taken part in the initiatives designed to provide information and promote awareness re-
garding general environmental topics and sustainable consumption.
The questionnaire was divided into two main sections: the first section investigated the effectiveness of the com-
munication campaign in terms of actual improvement in the level of environmentally friendly behavior with regard

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment Bus. Strat. Env. (2013)
DOI: 10.1002/bse
 F. Testa et al.

to purchase choices; the second aimed to check familiarity with the particular brands and certifications promoted by
the PROMISE campaign. By means of newsletters on environmental issues, consumers received warnings on the
imminent start of the survey and the invitation to submit the questionnaire. The survey started on 13 April 2012
and closed on 17 May 2012.
The criteria used to decide which observations were to be kept was that each valid questionnaire had to have no
more than 10 missing variables in the first set of questions. At the end of this selection, the dataset used for further
analysis was reduced from 3607 observations to 2658 observations.
In order to check the presence of common method variance we performed a post hoc Harman one-factor test
(Podsakoff and Organ, 1986). This test assumes that, by entering an exploratory factor analysis, if a substantial
amount of common method variance is present, either (a) a single factor will emerge from the factor analysis or
(b) one general factor will account for the majority of the covariance among the variables (Andersson and Bateman,
1997; Aulakh and Gencturk, 2000). The test reveals the presence of three distinct factors with eigenvalue greater
than 1.0 and that no single factor accounts for the majority of covariance (the largest accounts for 45% of
covariance).
Moreover, several procedural remedies were carried out in the design of the questionnaire to reduce social desir-
ability and leniency bias, item characteristics and context effects: for example, we minimized item ambiguity by
avoiding vague concepts, complicated syntax and unfamiliar terms; we kept questions uncomplicated, specific,
and concise; we provided verbal labels for the midpoints of scales and we guaranteed respondents’ anonymity.

Estimation Model and Variables

In order to test the effect of the knowledge of eco-labels and consumers’ purchasing attitudes on green consump-
tion, we constructed two equations with some measures of green consumptions as dependent variables. We
assumed that the frequency of purchasing of specific selected green products depended on the knowledge of appli-
cable green product certification schemes that provide for use of a logo on the product packaging and on purchasing
attitudes that can guide consumers’ choice. In detail, we assume that

GreenConsumption ¼ ϕ 0 þ ϕ 1 LabelKnowledge þ ϕ 2 Consumer’sAttitudesϕ 2 þ CONTROL þ ε (1)

in which CONTROL is a vector of exogenous variables and ε is an idiosyncratic error. Because similar unobserved
factors may influence the frequency of green consumption and the knowledge of green labels, an ordered probit
model might generate inconsistent estimations. Therefore, we used an instrumental variable predicting the green
label knowledge and we performed an instrumental probit regression or a bivariate probit model depending on
whether the endogenous regressor is a dummy or a continuous variable. The instrumental variable we used to pre-
dict the level of knowledge of the green label was having received in the last 18 months the informative materials on
product certifications carried out within the PROMISE project (the error terms in the label knowledge equations and
the two consumption equations are significantly correlated – 0.37 and 0.15). Statistical analysis was performed using
STATA 12.0.

Dependent Variable
In contrast to previous studies (Shrum et al., 1995; Aman et al., 2012), we did not measure green consumption by
general questions on purchasing ecological products, but focused – in accordance with Darnall et al. (2012) – on spe-
cific product categories that, in our research, are strictly linked with the two investigated product certification
schemes, i.e. eco-friendly paper (copying paper, tissue paper) and all-purpose cleaners and domestic detergents.
In detail, consumers were asked ’How often do you purchase the following products?’. A list of eight green products
was reported; among those we selected the products ’ecological paper’ and ’green home cleaners’. For each of these,
consumers reported ’always’, ’often’, ’rarely’ or ’never’. Since we performed a probit regression, we constructed two
binary variables, assigning 1 when the consumer ’always’ bought ’ecological paper’ and ’green home cleaners’ and
0 in the other cases.

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment Bus. Strat. Env. (2013)
DOI: 10.1002/bse
Why Eco-Labels can be Effective Marketing Tools

Independent Variables
Following our model (1), we relied on two sets of independent variables to measure the level of knowledge of eco-
labels and the consumers’ attitudes towards purchasing choices.
Regarding the first set of variables, because we focused on specific green products, we investigated the level of
knowledge only of those eco-labels that are ’applicable’ to these products, such as the EU Ecolabel and FSC
certification.
In order to reduce social desirability bias, which can affect a general question on the level of knowledge of such
eco-labels, we relied on two survey questions that asked ’In your opinion, a EU Ecolabel product certification (FSC
product certification) identifies a product that (please, declare your level of agreement for each statement)…’. For the
EU Ecolabel, respondents were presented with the following statements: ’It is organic (yes = 0; no = 1)’; ’It is
recycled/recyclable (yes = 0; no = 1)’; ’It is manufactured according to European environmental criteria (yes = 1; no = 0)’.
Similarly, for the FSC product certification, respondents were presented with the following statements: ’It is organic
(yes = 0 no = 1)’; ’It is recycled/recyclable (yes = 0 no = 1)’; ’It is manufactured using cellulose from responsibly managed
forest (yes = 1; no = 0)’. Assigning 1 to the true answer and 0 to the false answers, we constructed an index to measure
the level of knowledge of each label. To test the effect of the two labels on green paper consumption, the two variables
were combined, by factor analysis, to produce a single factor called ’eco-label knowledge’ (Cronbach’s alpha 0.74).
Moreover, to test the effect of the EU Ecolabel knowledge on green detergent consumption, since we performed a
bivariate probit regression, we constructed a dummy variable (endogenous regressor), assigning 1 if the variable ’level
of knowledge of EU Ecolabel’ scored 3 (all answers are right) and 0 otherwise.
The second set of independent variables measured the attitudes of consumers towards some product attributes.
To assess the level of importance of some product’s features, we relied on survey questions that asked ’Using a scale
from 1 to 10 (where 10 is the maximum value), express the extent to which the following aspects influence your pur-
chasing decision’. Respondents replied indicating the level of influence of the following product attributes: price,
quality, brand loyalty, store loyalty and product’s safety/health.

Control Variables
Because the analysis of factors influencing the purchasing choices requires taking into account some personal char-
acteristics, we included a set of exogenous variables that were expected to affect the frequency of the green choices
by consumers.
Among the variables introduced, one was the level of education (five scales of education), since several studies
found that a high level of education was linked to environmental consciousness of citizens and, as a consequence,
to a sustainable consumption behavior (see for instance Berger and Corbin, 1992; Karp, 1996, Tilikidou and
Delistavrou, 2008; Darnall et al., 2012). Another measure introduced was gender, since contrasting evidence
emerged on the similarities in green consumption attitudes between men and women: according to some studies,
women are more likely to buy green products than men (Tikka et al., 2000; Mostafa, 2007), while other studies did
not find a significant difference (D’Souza et al., 2007; Chen and Chai, 2010). Other measures also included
(Straughan and Roberts, 1999) were age and geographical location (i.e. region of residence). The descriptive statis-
tics and correlations for the study’s variables are summarized in Table 1.

Results
The most significant outcome of our model was the significance that awareness and knowledge of eco-labels (such
as the EU Ecolabel and FSC) had in determining the choice by consumers of adopting ecological behavior (see
Table 2); specifically, the higher the consumer’s awareness and information on a product’s superior environmental
performance, the higher the probability that he/she will buy paper and home cleaners with a reduced impact on the
environment (the coefficients in both equations are positive and highly significant). Our results, therefore, confirm
the ability of eco-labels to support the development of ’green purchasing’ (Perrini et al., 2010), but also emphasize
the need for well designed certification schemes and communication instruments, in order to avoid unclear and
confusing messages to consumers.

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment Bus. Strat. Env. (2013)
DOI: 10.1002/bse
 (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12) (13)

(1) Green consumption 1.00

of ecologic paper
(2) Green consumption 0.46*** 1.00
of cleaning product
(3) Knowledge of EU 0.11*** 0.07*** 1.00
Ecolabel
(4) Knowledge of FSC 0.15*** 0.09*** 0.58*** 1.00
certification scheme
(5) Importance of price 0.07*** 0.01 0.06*** 0.08*** 1.00
in product purchasing
choices
(6) Importance of quality 0.09*** 0.15*** 0.04*** 0.01 0.27*** 1.00
in product purchasing

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment
choices
(7) Importance of brand 0.03* 0.05*** 0.05*** 0.09*** 0.13*** 0.16*** 1.00
in product purchasing
choices
(8) Importance of store 0.07*** 0.08*** 0.05*** 0.07*** 0.14*** 0.27*** 0.34*** 1.00
loyalty in product
purchasing choices
(9) Importance of safety/ 0.10*** 0.17*** 0.03* 0.02 0.20*** 0.39*** 0.18*** 0.39*** 1.00
health in product
purchasing choices
(10) Gender 0.06*** 0.11*** 0.01 0.04** 0.01 0.09*** 0.05*** 0.01 0.08*** 1.00
* *** *** *** ** ***
(11) Age 0.03 0.01 0.15 0.15 0.04 0.01 0.01 0.13 0.04** 0.21*** 1.00
(12) Education 0.05*** 0.01*** 0.13*** 0.13*** 0.09*** 0.01 0.05*** 0.11*** 0.09*** 0.11*** 0.22*** 1.00
(13) Geographic region 0.07*** 0.02 0.01 0.03* 0.02 0.02 0.04** 0.02 0.01 0.05*** 0.01 0.11*** 1.00
(Northern Italy;
Central Italy;
Southern Italy)
Mean 0.20 0.18 0.19 0.191 7.76 8.91 5.49 7.43 8.41 0.47 3.90 3.31 1.52
Standard deviation 0.40 0.38 0.39 0.39 1.85 1.52 2.46 2.13 1.75 0.49 1.14 0.77 0.65
Min. 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 1
Max. 1 1 1 1 10 10 10 10 10 1 6 5 3
N 3607 3607 3607 3607 2904 2925 2879 2902 2878 2735 2734 2734 2734

Table 1. Correlation matrix and descriptive statistics

*, **and ***indicate significance at the 10%, 5% and 1% levels, respectively.

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Why Eco-Labels can be Effective Marketing Tools

Green consumption Green consumption

of ecologic paper of cleaning products

Coefficient (1) Standard Coefficient (3) Marginal

error (2) effect (4)

Knowledge of green label (EU Ecolabel and FSC) 0.712*** 0.186

Knowledge of EU Ecolabel 1.019*** 0.0519
Importance of price in product purchasing choices 0.046** 0.021 0.062*** 0.0020
Importance of quality in product purchasing choices 0.026 0.026 0.049** 0.0026
Importance of brand in product purchasing choices 0.005 0.013 0.035*** 0.0011
Importance of store loyalty in product purchasing choices 0.042*** 0.016 0.006 0.0001
Importance of safety/health in product purchasing choices 0.028 0.022 0.095*** 0.0031
Gender 0.180*** 0.055 0.295*** 0.0096
Age 0.053 0.034 0.010 0.0003
Education 0.011 0.041 0.001 0.0001
Geographic region (North =1; South = 3) 0.037 0.044 0.064 0.0021
CONS 1.519 0.291 2.223*** 0.0046
Wald chi2 107.07*** 167.30***
Wald test for rho = 0 (chi2) 5.84** 6.846***
No of observations 2518 2595

Table 2. Estimation result of green consumption

Model was estimated using a probit model with continuous endogenous regressor with robust errors and a bivariate probit model
with robust errors (instrumented endogenous dummy regressors).
*, **and ***indicate significance at the 10%, 5% and 1% levels, respectively.

Eco-labeling schemes are primarily designed as policy tools that are aimed at signaling the best options available
on the market for those consumers who want to express their preferences through purchasing choices. Our study
clearly shows that these tools are able to fully achieve their main task only if consumers are informed and aware
of their meaning, characteristics, requirements, guarantees provided and so on.
As a consequence, eco-labels can also be usefully exploited by companies as marketing tools only if supported
(and accompanied) by a communication strategy and a complete set of information addressed to consumers, on
which they can rely as a stimulus and a guide for their purchasing choices.
Our model also provides interesting insights on the purchasing attitudes that characterize a ’green consumption’-
oriented behavior.
First of all, in accordance with many empirical cases, the PROMISE study confirms that green consumers do not
consider price as a priority when it comes to eco-friendly products, mainly because they are willing to pay more for
these products (Michaud et al., 2013). Moreover, we found that those consumers with a higher ’price-sensitivity’ are
not keen to buy green household products such as copying paper or home cleaner products. This also holds true for
those product categories for which, applying a life cycle approach, the prices of green products are comparable with
those of their ’grey versions’ (Rüdenauer et al., 2007).
Second, the evidence we analyzed reveals that coupling high performance and ecological attributes in the concept
of an innovative product is not an ’oxymoron’ anymore, in particular for those products where variables such as
quality, functionality or ’effectiveness in use’ are fundamental for the final purchasing decision by consumers.
For instance, the results of our model point out that consumers who consider the ’quality’ of a product a key driver
for their final choice are also more incline to buy green cleaning products –a market segment where functionality
(i.e. cleaning power) is crucial. Conversely, the same relation is not significant for copying paper, where the
quality attributes are traditionally less important than in many other sectors. This finding can be generalized by
saying that in the case of many product categories positioned at the ’upper end’ of the market (e.g. technology-
intensive products, luxury and fashion goods, high quality food etc.) consumers are more likely to appreciate
environmental attributes.

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment Bus. Strat. Env. (2013)
DOI: 10.1002/bse
 F. Testa et al.

A third valuable piece of evidence emerging from our model is the limited role of brand and/or store loyalty in
supporting green consumption. The relation between these two key marketing variables and the probability of pur-
chasing green products is either not significant or has a negligible influence on consumers’ decisions.
Slightly different is the effect of the importance of health and safety attributes in green product purchasing
choices. As we expected, the relation between this purchasing attitude and green consumption is significant, but this
happens only for the products where there is a clear risk for health linked to their use phase.
Finally, our study yields some results on the ’demand side’, showing that the so-called ’green consumer’ no lon-
ger has a defined profile regarding his/her personal characteristics. In contrast to several studies (Straughan and
Roberts, 1999; Darnall et al., 2012), we found that the level of education, the age and the region of residence did
not influence the choice of a consumer to buy green paper or ecological home cleaners, whereas gender still played
a significant role (in accordance with Mostafa, 2007, our study shows that women are more likely to buy these prod-
ucts than men).

Robustness Check
A common exercise for checking reliability of an empirical model is to analyze how the core regression coefficient
estimates behave when the regression specifications are changed (White and Lu, 2010).
To test the robustness of the results of our first equation, we separately analyzed the effect of the level of knowl-
edge of EU Ecolabel and FSC product certification by constructing two different dummy variables and performing
two bivariate probit regressions. The results confirmed the consistency of our first estimates – that is, a strong
knowledge of EU Ecolabel and FSC does support the green choices of consumers. In contrast to the first equation,
the attitude of consumers towards the quality of products is positively related to green consumption, while a high
importance of brand in purchasing choice reduces the probability that a consumer buys green paper.
To check the robustness of our second equation, we changed the measure of the EU Ecolabel’s knowledge by
constructing a new dummy variable, assigning score 1 when the value of the ’level of knowledge of EU Ecolabel’
is at least 2 (one answer wrong) and 0 otherwise. The results highlight the reliability of the previous considerations,
showing also higher estimated effects in some cases (see Table 3).

Discussion and Conclusion

By using data from an extensive survey on Italian consumers, we investigated whether the knowledge of eco-labels
and some general attitudes in purchasing choices are able to influence ecological consumers’ behavior.
Previous studies revealed that, in the case of a widespread environmental awareness, the consumers’ purchasing
decisions are significantly affected by the consideration of the product impacts on the environment (Ha and Janda,
2012; Darnall et al., 2012), and our model confirms this empirical evidence, highlighting the significant role of eco-
labels in increasing the perceived behavioral control in consumers.
One first managerial implication of the model is, therefore, that the use of the eco-label is perceived as an impor-
tant guarantee for the purchasing choice, by providing reliable information: consequently, this tool can be used in
marketing strategies to prevent vague and misleading assertions and attract those target consumers whose choice
depends on variables such as trust and reliability of the producer. If a company is facing (final or intermediate) mar-
kets where customers are well aware and informed on environmental issues, then a third-party certification is the
most effective tool to gain competitiveness. The main managerial implication stemming from our work is that send-
ing stronger environmental guarantees and more information to the market increases the consumer’s trust, which
can have positive effects on competitiveness, and even on turnover. Thus, marketing campaigns based on the use of
eco-labels could be effective to increase consumers’ liability and magnify their attitude to buy greener products.
The use of an eco-label in marketing can itself be a way to increase awareness and sensitiveness (especially when
it is widely used in the company’s market segment, also by competitors), thus creating a ’virtuous circle’ that pre-
pares and stimulates the consumers to buy products that hold an eco-label.

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment Bus. Strat. Env. (2013)
DOI: 10.1002/bse
Why Eco-Labels can be Effective Marketing Tools

Green consumption Green consumption Green consumption

of ecologic paper of ecologic paper of cleaning product

Coefficient (1) Marginal Coefficient (3) Marginal Coefficient (5) Marginal

effect (2) effect (4) effect (6)

Knowledge of EU Ecolabel 1.450*** 0.0697 1.144*** 0.1165

Knowledge of FSC certification scheme 1.623*** 0.0779
Importance of price in product 0.074*** 0.0004 0.072*** 0.0007 0.075*** 0.0070
purchasing choices
Importance of quality in product 0.045** 0.0004 0.041** 0.0004 0.043** 0.0041
purchasing choices
Importance of brand in product 0.019** 0.0002 0.017* 0.0002 0.022** 0.0020
purchasing choices
Importance of store loyalty in 0.026** 0.0001 0.031** 0.0003 0.031** 0.0029
product purchasing choices
Importance of safety in product 0.028 0.0001 0.030 0.0003 0.036** 0.0034
purchasing choices
Gender 0.082* 0.0004 0.104** 0.0010 0.098** 0.0092
Age 0.035* 0.0002 0.025* 0.0002 0.027 0.0025
Education 0.043 0.0002 0.042 0.0004 0.048 0.0045
Geographic region (North = 1; South = 3) 0.025 0.0001 0.018 0.0002 0.007 0.0007
CONS 1.217*** 1.352*** 1.563***
Wald chi2 367.17*** 254.42*** 205.31***
Wald test for rho = 0 (chi2) 5.153*** 2.707** 5.856**
No of observations 2595 2595 2595

Table 3. Robustness check of performance equations

Model was estimated using a bivariate probit model with robust errors (instrumented endogenous dummy regressors).
*, **and ***indicate significance at the 10%, 5% and 1% levels, respectively.

The trust that we found in the two ’official’ eco-labels (EU Ecolabel and FSC label) has also reduced the role of the
brand in guiding the consumption choices, since the tendency to trust the third-party certification credibility appears
to become a surrogate for other forms of loyalty on which consumers traditionally rely. This implies that an eco-label
can offer great opportunities for those companies that are competing with strong brands (e.g. in the fashion indus-
try) to overcome the consumer brand loyalty and, by means of a trustable ’green marketing’, to create a break-
through and subtract significant shares from traditional market leaders.
Another significant finding refers to the role of personal characteristics in determining a green purchasing be-
havior. In contrast to previous studies (Berger and Corbin, 1992; Karp, 1996; Straughan and Roberts, 1999), our
research shows that a green consumer profile is no longer well defined, since environmental consciousness nowa-
days is permeating all social strata and is not a peculiar characteristic of a precise cluster of consumers. This is going
to profoundly change the way in which ’green marketing strategies’ are conceived, designed and implemented. Mar-
keting plans that point at a well defined consumer category (such as ’young mothers’), who are deemed to be an
ideal target for green products by virtue of socio-demographical reasons, are no longer effective. A green marketing
plan today should cope with the expectations of a wide range of consumers and stakeholders, different in personal
and social characteristics, but all focused on the need to be reassured that the product they buy is definitely better
than its competitors for environmental performance and that, by choosing this particular product ’on the shelf’,
the consumers are really helping the environment, in a concrete and measurable way. For this reason, the eco-label
can considerably trigger competitiveness: it is the most direct and reliable way to give consumers the certainty that
the eco-labeled product is better, and – if preferred over others – can contribute to protecting the environment.
One last practical implication deriving from our study is that the virtuous circle between ’trust’ and ’purchasing
attitudes’ can be greatly boosted by retailers, who hold a great potential in promoting eco-labels at their points of
sale, in educating customers to understand, recognize and accept eco-labels, and finally in adopting green

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment Bus. Strat. Env. (2013)
DOI: 10.1002/bse
 F. Testa et al.

procurement practices based on these certifications. This means that co-operating with retailers can be a key to suc-
cess for a producer ’green marketing strategy’ centered on the eco-label. A producer can strengthen and enrich its
competitive chances by using large retailing channels, not only because they allow it to reach a larger number of
consumers, but because these actors are able to support the eco-label with information campaigns, special offers
and co-marketing initiatives and, most important of all, by promoting synergies and multiplying opportunities
within a wider range of eco-labeled products, belonging to many different categories (e.g. detergents, tissue paper,
textiles, paints etc.).
The findings of our study can also be employed by policy makers to motivate their efforts in supporting clear and
reliable eco-labels, capable of providing credible and verifiable environmental information to consumers. In fact,
without effective policy actions that are truly able to support the development of the most reliable eco-labeling ini-
tiatives, the strong environmental ’push’ from consumers will probably have a limited impact on the market.
Moreover, the establishment and consolidation of common guidelines (or univocal regulation) of environmental
claims at the EU level, aimed at improving the use of the eco-labels as marketing and information tools, could pre-
vent biases or misleading messages being conveyed to consumers, and could enable a more consistent and syner-
getic action by other influent stakeholders (environmental associations or consumerist NGOs) to support or
boycott the purchasing of certain products on the market. In this direction, the plan of the European Commission
to set up a common and shared methodology on the Product Environmental Footprint represents a valuable action.
Finally, some limitations of this study should be recognized. First, the data were collected from consumers of the
most important Italian retailer, Coop, which has a long experience in sustainability issues by having corporate social
responsibility as a key driver of its strategic agenda. This might have caused a bias in the respondents, as they are,
without doubt, sensitive consumers. Moreover, behavioral patterns of consumers are different among countries
(Perrini et al., 2010); therefore, in order to assess the robustness of our study, it would be desirable to replicate
the study by involving other retailers or in other contexts outside of Italy. Another limitation deals with the focus
on specific products and eco-labels; future research, therefore, needs to check whether other relevant eco-labels such
as the energy label, Friend of the Sea, environmental product declarations (EPDs) etc. have the same effect on eco-
logical behavior. Third, we used cross-sectional data, and this implies caution in the relations’ interpretation. Future
research using longitudinal data, even if more complicated to collect and perform, would be advisable. Finally,
future studies should analyze, in general, how companies use environmental claims to promote their products or
organization and how the ’greenwashing’ phenomenon negatively affects ecological behaviors and the credibility
of communication initiatives based on ecolabels.

Acknowledgments
We thank ANCC–COOP, the national retailers association and the delegation of the Legacoop consumers’ cooperatives repre-
sented by Claudio Toso, head of the National Social Policies Unit, and Francesco Russo, project manager of the PROMISE pro-
ject, for their cooperation. Moreover, we are grateful to the partners of the PROMISE project, funded by the EC LIFE + program,
led by Regione Liguria and carried out with the co-operation of ERVET, ANCC–COOP, Confindustria Liguria and Regione Lazio.

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