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Green decisions: Consumers' environmental beliefs and green purchasing

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Article  in  International Journal of Innovation and Sustainable Development · January 2013

DOI: 10.1504/IJISD.2013.053336

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172 Int. J. Innovation and Sustainable Development, Vol. 7, No. 2, 2013

Green decisions: consumers’ environmental

beliefs and green purchasing behaviour in
Sri Lankan context

G.D. Samarasinghe*
Faculty of Graduate Studies,
University of Colombo,
Colombo, Sri Lanka
and
Department of Management of Technology,
Faculty of Engineering,
University of Moratuwa,
Katubedda, Sri Lanka
Email: usjdinesh@yahoo.com
Email: dineshs@uom.lk
*Corresponding author

D.S.R. Samarasinghe
Department of Marketing Management,
Faculty of Management Studies & Commerce,
University of Sri Jayewardednepura,
Nugegoda, Sri Lanka
Email: rohinisamarasingha@yahoo.com

Abstract: This study elucidates how consumers’ environmental knowledge

and affect influence green purchasing behaviour in Sri Lanka. A survey
research was undertaken with a random sample of 238 consumers. The data
analysis revealed that environmental knowledge is not a significant predictor
but environmental affect is a significant and weak predictor of green purchase
intention. It also discovered that the relationship between environmental affect
and actual green purchase behaviour is partially intervened by green product
purchase intention. It further illustrates the impact of demographics on the
relationship. Further investigation is required to find out what other important
factors might influence the green purchase behaviour as shaped by socio-
cultural environment. Green policy makers can get insights on how to formulate
green messages to motivate consumers’ green purchase behaviour. It highlights
that so called green product knowledge and affect are not powerful predictors
of green purchase behaviour in a developing context like Sri Lanka.

Keywords: developing context; environmental affect; environmental beliefs;

environmental knowledge; consumer demographics; green purchasing
behaviour; sustainable development.

Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Samarasinghe, G.D. and

Samarasinghe, D.S.R. (2013) ‘Green decisions: consumer’s environmental
beliefs and green purchasing behaviour in Sri Lankan context’, Int. J.
Innovation and Sustainable Development, Vol. 7, No. 2, pp.172–184.

Copyright © 2013 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

 Green decisions: consumers’ environmental beliefs 173

Biographical notes: G.D. Samarasinghe is a Doctoral candidate of Marketing

and Business Strategy at the Faculty of Graduate Studies, University of
Colombo, Sri Lanka and a Lecturer of Department of Management of
Technology, Faculty of Engineering, University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka. His
research interests include environmental marketing, innovations and dynamic
capabilities.

D.S.R. Samarasinghe is a Senior Lecturer attached to Department of Marketing

Management, Faculty of Management, University of Sri Jayewardednepura,
Sri Lanka. Her research interests include environmental marketing and
consumer psychology.

1 Background of the study

In marketing theory and practice, ‘eco-friendly’ or ‘green’ has become a buzz word and a
trend in recent years. Going green is a major contributor to the triple bottom line of
business: i.e. people, profit and planet. However, going green requires a substantial
shift in corporate culture as well as strategic decisions to be in line with consumers’
environmental beliefs and attitudes. Concerns related to the environment are evident in
the increasingly environmental conscious market place. Majority of consumers have
realised that their purchasing behaviour has a direct impact on many ecological problems.
Customers adapt to this new threatening situation by considering environmental issues in
their purchase decisions and buying only ecologically compatible products (e.g., products
with biodegradable packages, CFC free refrigerators and air-conditioners). Studies on
consumption on environmentally sustainable products have demonstrated that perceived
product performance is a significant barrier to their selection. Ottman and Reilly (1998)
shows that 41% of consumers do not buy ‘green’ products because of their perceived
inferiority. Since the 1980s, green marketing has gone through several stages. After a
backlash in the 1980s, green marketing has made an upswing in the West from 2000
onwards (Ottman et al., 2006). The force of ’going green’ is now expanding to the Asian
region, where environmental threats are alarming local governments and citizens. Like
many Asian countries, Sri Lanka suffers from dangerously increasing levels of air
pollution, exposure to severe traffic noise, high levels of garbage deposal and rapidly
diminishing landfill space in most of the urbanised areas.
In order to advance a country’s green revolution, McDougall (1993) asserts the
essential role of consumers. This assertion is supported by the evidence that 30–40% of
environmental degradation is brought about by the consumption activities of private
households (Grunert, 1993). More importantly, if consumers exhibit a high degree of
ecological concern and channel into some eco-friendly purchasing behaviour, it is likely
that profit-driven enterprises will be strongly motivated to adopt the concept of green
marketing in their business practices. Consequently, the dynamics of this buyer–seller
interaction will lead to further advancement of the green revolution across the whole
country (Ottman, 1992). Thus, in order to better understand the environmental movement
of a particular country, a practical approach is the examination of how the consumers in a
country view ecological issues and how these views are reflected in purchasing
behaviour with regard to green products and services. An important challenge that
marketers face is to identify which factors lead consumers to buy green products or what
174 G.D. Samarasinghe and D.S.R. Samarasinghe

are things the consumers take into consideration before green purchases. If one can find
out these factors, marketers will be able to develop effective marketing mix strategies to
attract consumers towards green products and promote environmental sustainability.

1.1 Problem statement and objectives of the study

With the increased level of environmental pollution and social issues, now both
consumers and business organisations are concerned with the natural environment in Sri
Lanka. So businesses have begun to modify their behaviour in an attempt to address
environmental and social issues as a way of their social responsibility. Presently, it is
observable that some business sectors like Apparel, Hotel and Tourism and consumer
goods industries have been adopting eco-friendly business initiatives. Among these
sectors, Fast Moving Consumable Goods (FMCG) sector is very important as its large
contribution in the economy as well as the closeness to Sri Lankan consumers’ day-to-
day lives. The FMCG sector of the country is concerned about the green marketing
issues. Most of FMCG marketing companies have incorporated green elements into their
marketing mixes as a competitive tool. For instance, FMCG marketing companies in Sri
Lanka use environment friendly and recyclable packaging and modify the products to
minimise or prevent the environment pollution. However there is a doubt among the both
academia as well as practitioners in the industry regarding the perceived value of green
product to customers in a developing country like Sri Lanka. At the same time, it is
visible that there is an emerging segment of consumers in Sri Lanka, who are very much
concerned about environmental and social issues due to business practices. Sri Lanka is
as Asian society, its environmental quality legs and consumerist movement far behind
when compared to the developed countries. Research evidence suggested that citizens in
Asian societies are increasingly becoming conscious of alarming environmental
problems. Government policies and business strategies in many Asian countries are being
reshaped to give more consideration to long-term sustainable development including
environmental protection (Johri and Sahasakmontri, 1998; Kaman, 2008).
Although environmental issues are increasingly influencing every aspect of life of
people in Sri Lanka well as business and marketing strategies to get competitive
advantage, still there are very few studies that discuss green issues in the Sri Lankan
market context. There have been few studies on green consumer purchase attitudes and
behaviour undertaken in Sri Lanka. One survey method based study undertaken by
Wanninayake and Randiwela (2008) investigated the consumer attitudes and perceptions
towards eco-friendly products in FMCG sector and their willingness to pay for green
products. The study revealed that the green products have substantial awareness among
Sri Lankan customers and they are willing to spend something more on green products.
The majority of customers considered that package is most important element of such
products in the marketing mix elements. Although the term ‘green products’ are
attracting higher attention of people, the real factors affecting green purchasing decisions
in the Sri Lankan context are not yet discovered empirically. Specially, the impact of
environmental beliefs in terms of environmental knowledge and affect as determinants of
green purchase behaviour has not been explained in Sri Lanka. Therefore, with this
empirical background, the study attempts to examine as to how the consumer’s
environmental knowledge and environmental affect influence green purchase behaviour
in Sri Lanka.
 Green decisions: consumers’ environmental beliefs 175

It mainly focuses on achieving the following objectives in order to address the

research problem:
1 To explain the relationship between environmental knowledge and green purchase
intention.
2 To examine the relationship between environmental affect and green purchase
intention.
3 To elucidate the link between green purchase intention and actual green purchase.
In addition, it identifies interactive role of consumers’ demographics on the relationship
among above variables related to green purchase behaviour.

1.2 Literature review and hypotheses development

The following section deals with the key literature related to the major concepts and
variables of the study and develop the underlying hypothetical relationships.

1.2.1 Green purchase intention and actual green behaviour

In marketing and consumer behaviour literature, it has become very important to predict
the actual purchase behaviour of customers. However, due to the practical difficulty in
measuring the actual behaviour, the purchase intention has been used as the most
immediate proxy to predict the actual behaviour (Ajzen and Fishhbein, 1977; Ajzen and
Fishhbein, 1980). According to the theatrical framework of Ajzen and Fishhbein (1980)
the study defines green behaviour intention as the purpose towards purchasing green
brands/products and intention to involve social and community activities to protect the
environment whilst the actual green behaviour is referred the degree of real purchase of
the green products and present involvement of social, legal, political and environmental
friendly works to protect the environment.

1.2.2 Consumer green beliefs: environmental knowledge vs. environmental

affect
Consumer’s green/environmental beliefs have become effective contributor to identify
target markets and motivate consumers to engage in green purchasing behaviour.
According to Stern (2000), beliefs have been conceptualised as individual’s awareness of
the environmental consequences (AC) of a certain behaviour and ascription of
responsibility (AR) to themselves for taking prevention actions, develop pro-
environmental norms which have a high potential to affect actual behaviour. Research
indicates that the environment has had an explicit impact on consumer behaviour
according to their environmental beliefs (D’Souza et al., 2007), environmental
consequences and ascription of responsibility were positively associated with green
consumer behaviour, e.g., recycling behaviour (Stern et al., 1995) and willingness to
reduce car use (Nordlund and Garvill, 2002). The study conceptualises green beliefs and
attitudes in the light of respective influences of ecological knowledge and ecological
affect (Martin and Simintiras, 1995).The study defines environmental knowledge as ‘a
general knowledge of facts, concepts and relationships concerning the natural
environment and its ecosystems’ (Fayxell and Lo, 2003) whilst environmental affect as a
176 G.D. Samarasinghe and D.S.R. Samarasinghe

strong emotional attachment or feelings towards green products and green purchase
behaviour (Li, 1997). Hence, environmental knowledge reflects the cognitive response of
customers towards environmental attributes of products although environmental affect
presents more affective and emotional expression towards environmental aspects of
products. Thus, both are operating independently from each other but influencing
environmentally significant purchasing decisions Martin and Simintiras, (1995).

1.2.3 Environmental knowledge and green purchase intention

Fayxell and Lo (2003) define environmental knowledge as ‘a general knowledge of facts,
concepts and relationships concerning the natural environment and its ecosystems’.
Therefore, environmental knowledge evolves in two forms: one is that consumers have to
be educated to understand the general impact of the environment and the other is
consumer knowledge to behave in an environmental friendly way. Simply it means what
consumers know about the environment. Behavioural literature has noted that there is a
positive relationship between knowledge and environmental behaviour (Komorita and
Park, 1994; Chan and Lau, 2000). Researchers found that environmentally oriented
consumers were differing in consumers’ eco-knowledge and understanding of it
(Schuhwerk and Lefkoff-Hagius, 1995) and that the consumers who are knowledgeable
about the environmental problems can be motivated towards green purchase. Grunert
(1993) has supported that indicating statistically significant positive association between
knowledge and purchase of green products. Literature indicates that different
motivational factors can form attitudes toward pro-environmental behaviour.
Pro-environmental behaviour means behaviour that consciously seeks to minimise the
negative impact of individual’s actions on the natural environment. Initially, people’s
environmental knowledge and affect are identified as guiding principles of individual’s
life that govern the pro-environmental behaviour/environmental friendly behaviour. The
behavioural literature argues presence of positive relationship between knowledge and
pro-environmental behaviour (Komorita and Park, 1994; Chan and Lau, 2000). Thus, this
empirical study hypothesised that:
H1: Sri Lankan consumers with more knowledge about the environmental problems will
have a positive purchase intention for green products.

1.2.4 Environmental affect and green purchase intention

In addition to people’s knowledge about the environment, they may demonstrate a strong
emotional attachment or feelings towards green products and green purchase behaviour
(Li, 1997) and research has found that a positive association between environmental
affect or concern and behaviour (Hines et al., 1987). Further, Martin and Simintiras
(1995) found and suggested that the respective influences of ecological knowledge and
ecological affect on corresponding behaviour are independent from each other.
Numerous studies have revealed that environmental related feelings are a powerful
motivator of environmental behaviour (e.g., Stern et al., 1986; Hopper and Nielson,
1991; Vining and Ebreo, 1992; Stern and Dietz, 1994). They can influence the consumer
pro-ethical or pro-consumerist purchasing behaviour. Some studies have explicitly
examined the role of affect in explaining environmental behaviour, mostly in relation to
car use (Gatersleben, 2007). It was found that buying and use of a car (product) is
significantly related to affective and symbolic factors of the users. Steg (2005) reports
 Green decisions: consumers’ environmental beliefs 177

that Dittmar’s (1992) theory on the meaning of material possessions provides a

promising perspective which proposes that the use of material goods fulfils three
functions: instrumental, symbolic and affective. Hence, it is argued that use of product is
most strongly related to affective motives, while instrumental motives are less important
(Steg, 2005). Thus, it is hypothesised that:
H2: Sri Lankan consumers with stronger affective responses toward environmental
issues will have a positive purchase intention for green products.

1.2.5 Green purchase intention and actual green purchase behaviour

Literature demonstrates a positive relationship between environmental purchase intention
and behaviour. Most of the empirical studies used the “theory of reason action” that
conceptualises intention as the most immediately relevant predictor of corresponding
behaviour (Ajzen and Fishhbein, 1977; Ajzen and Fishhbein, 1980). Although above
mentioned theories attempt to explain the gap between consumer’s attitudes and
behaviour, still there is doubt about the different empirical domain that these attitudes do
not always results in actual behaviour. Thus, it is hypothesised that:
H3: Sri Lankan consumers with a stronger green purchase intention will be more likely
to actually purchase green products.

1.2.6 Socio-demographics and green purchasing behavioural intention

In late 1980s and 1990s main focuses of the green marketing research has dealt with
environmental friendly products with size of the green market, market potential and the
profile of the green consumers specially based on socio-demographics such as: age,
gender, education and purchasing power (Davis, 1993; Simintiras et al., 1993). For
examples, the age variable has been explored in more green marketing researches.
Roberts (1996) has found positive correlation between age and environmental behaviour
whist some other have shown that there is no significant correlation between age and
environmental attitudes/behaviour (Kinnear and Taylor, 1973). Some other findings
explain that green consumers usually belong to the age group of 30–44, average or low
income, women and better educated consumers (Ottman and Reilly, 1998); young
people, men, better educated are more sensitive to environmental issues (D’Souza et al.,
2007). However, there exist some contradictory findings (Do Paco et al., 2009).
Further, Diamantopoulos et al. (2003) summarised socio-demographic surveys made in
1966–1994 to explain the green consumer and they were found among others, 39 studies
on education, 31 studies on gender, 35 about age and 21 studies with social classes.
Indeed, it can be concluded that numerous researchers explained characteristics of the
green consumers to profile green consumers but it is still inconclusive and vary with
different context and therefore it is one of the aspects for further research especially in
different cultural contexts to identify green consumes. Hence, this study has addressed
demographic characteristics as moderating variables for the link between environmental
knowledge and environmental affect and green purchase intention.
178 G.D. Samarasinghe and D.S.R. Samarasinghe

1.3 Conceptual model

Based on above literature review the following conceptual model (shown in Figure 1)
was developed depicting the hypothesised relationships existing the independent
variables and the dependent variable of the study.

Figure 1 Conceptual model

Environmental
Knowledge
Green Actual Green
Purchase Purchase
Intention Behaviour
Environmental
Affect/Concern

Consumer Demographics (Age,

Gender, Marital Status,
Income, Education, Occupation

Source: Authors developed based on literature review

This model assumes that environmental knowledge of people about environmental issues,
as a predictor of green related purchase intention would automatically results in more
pro-environmental behaviour. Research has found that environmentally oriented
consumers differed in consumers’ eco-knowledge and understanding of it (Schuhwerk
and Lefkoff-Hagius, 1995), consumers who are knowledgeable about the environmental
problems can be motivated towards green purchase. Grunert (1993) has supported that
indicating statistically significant positive association between knowledge and
pro-environmental behaviour. Thus, environmental knowledge is a significant predictor
of consumer behaviour to be responsible towards environment (Shellyana Junaedi, 2007)
and tend to generate green purchase intention and in turn actual green purchase
behaviour. As the other predictor of green oriented purchase behaviour, the study
employs environmental affect of people that result in more pro-environmental behaviour.
Based on the arguments of Hines et al. (1987), Steg (2005) and Dittmar’s theory (1992),
it develops the link that people develop motivation and intention to buy green products
leading ultimately to actual green purchase behaviour for them. Further, the study
incorporates consumer demographics as moderators to the link between environmental
beliefs and green purchase intention based on the past literature (Davis, 1993; Simintiras
et al., 1993).
However, some research has shown that increases in knowledge and awareness did
not lead to pro-environmental behaviour and they noted that there are some discrepancies
between attitudes and behaviour gap, e.g., people’s experiences, cultural tradition and
norms, research methodological problems, etc. To minimise those discrepancies Theory
of Reasoned Action (TRA) (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980) and Theory of Planned Behaviour
(TPB) (Ajzen, 1991) theoretical models/frameworks were alternatively presented by
researchers.
 Green decisions: consumers’ environmental beliefs 179

2 Methodology

Survey research strategy was adopted. The population of the study consisted of the local
customers attending supermarket chains in the Colombo district of Sri Lanka. It mainly
focused on eco-friendly fast moving consumable products available in modern
trade/supermarket outlets. In order to make inferences of the population, it was
determined that a sample of 250 consumers would be sufficient for the study as it
satisfies rules of thumb proposed by Roscoe, 1975 (cited in Sekaran, 2007, p.295). In
order to collect the data necessary to measure the constructs related to the subjects of the
study, it was required to contact customers attending the respective supermarket chains in
Colombo district of Sri Lanka. The random sampling techniques were employed in
selecting the respondents using a profile of supermarket customers, consisting of
addresses in the Colombo district of Sri Lanka. The key decision makers of the selected
households were mailed the structured questionnaires with a covering letter describing
the purpose of the study and stamped envelopes to return the questionnaire. It was made
sure that the respondents included a sufficient number (at least 30 respondents in each
sub-sample on the basis of each demographic variable) for each subgroups to represent
different demographics in terms of gender, marital status, income, age, education and
occupation for the analysis of the influence of the demographics on the link between
independent variables and the dependent variable of the conceptual model. The response
rate was 95% as a few respondents did not returned the questionnaires, i.e.
237 respondents completed the questionnaires. Green knowledge of consumers was
operationalized in terms of the amount of knowledge an individual has about
environmental issues using five items while environmental affect in terms of the degree
of emotionality an individual attaches to environmental issues using five items (Maloney
et al., 1975). Green purchase intention was measured in terms of the respondent’s
intention to engage in green purchase using four items whilst actual purchase behaviour
was measured in terms of the respondent’s actual present behaviour with respect to green
purchase using two statements (Li, 1997). Self-administrative questionnaires were used
to collect the predetermined data required to measure the constructs related to green
purchase behaviour. A structured questionnaire mainly consisting of five point Likert
scales (strongly agree–strongly disagree) was used to measure the dimensions. Before
conducting the large scale questionnaire survey, a pilot study was carried out to confirm
the reliability of the constructs. Cronbach’s alpha was calculated to measure the
reliability/internal consistency of the measurement scales. If the value is ≥0.7, the scales
were sufficiently reliable Nunnally (1967). The face/content validity of the scales was
assured through experts’ reviews and literature survey. In order to test the dimensionality
of the measurement constructs, an exploratory factor analysis was performed by
following the procedure recommended by Churchill (1979). A few in-depth interviews
with a few customers were also carried out to improve understanding of the quantitative
findings of the study. Data analysis strategy in the study consisted of both descriptive
statistical analysis and inferential statistical analysis. The hypotheses were tested using
multiple linear regression analysis The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSSR)
version 16.0 was used for data analysis.
180 G.D. Samarasinghe and D.S.R. Samarasinghe

3 Results and discussion

According to the Pearson correlation analysis, it was evident that environmental

knowledge and environmental affect had a significantly moderate and positive
association with green purchase intention while green purchase intention had a
significantly strong positive association with actual purchase behaviour. In testing the
hypothesised relationships depicted in the conceptual model, the linear regression
analysis revealed the following results as shown in Table 1.
Table 1 Linear regression results

Regression Significance
Independent variable Dependent variable R2 Beta
model level (P)
Environmental knowledge Green purchase 0.04 0.25
1 0.43
Environmental affect intention 0.26 0.02
Actual green
2 Green Purchase intention 0.72 0.67 0.004
purchase
Source: Survey data
The results of this analysis are given in Table 1. According to this analysis, hypothesis 1
is rejected and there is no significant evidence to conclude that the consumer’s
environmental knowledge positively influences the green purchase intention in Sri
Lanka. This finding is anyhow contradictory with the extant literature and findings based
on research undertaken in the West where customers’ natural environmental related
knowledge is a powerful motivator of their purchase decision making and guiding their
intention for environmental friendly products and services. Therefore, these findings are
not congruent with the studies of Chan and Lau (2000), Komorita and Park (1994),
Schuhwerk and Lefkoff-Hagius (1995) and Grunert (1993). There is literature that
explains why environmental knowledge and awareness sometimes do not lead to
environmental behaviour. These contingencies can include e.g., people’s experiences,
cultural tradition and norms, research methodological problems, etc. (Ajzen and
Fishbein, 1980; Ajzen, 1991). This inconsistency may perhaps be due to the fact that in
an Asian context, there is still less awareness making programmes and knowledge
sharing on environmental issues when compared to the Western context. However,
hypothesis 2 is accepted and there is significant evidence that the consumer’s
environmental affects positively influences green purchase intention in Sri Lanka but this
impact seems weaker. This finding is similar to those of past studies e.g., Hopper and
Nielson (1991), Stern and Dietz (1994), Stern et al. (1986) and Vining and Ebreo (1992).
This confirms that customers’ positive feelings and emotions related to environment
friendly products and services can be a strong motivator for creating a purchase intention
towards them in the Asian context as in the West. Further, hypothesis 3 is accepted and
there is significant evidence to support that green purchase intention strongly leads to
actual green purchase decision in Sri Lanka as in the West and confirms the claims of the
seminal research papers (Ajzen and Fishhbein, 1977; Ajzen and Fishhbein, 1980). Hence,
purchase intention for green products is still a powerful predicator for actual green
product behaviour in the Eastern context, especially in Sri Lanka. In the two regression
models predicting purchase intention and actual green purchase respectively, the
goodness of fit is predicted using R2 which is, respectively, 0.43 and 0.72. Therefore,
the model predicting green purchase intention using environmental knowledge and
 Green decisions: consumers’ environmental beliefs 181

environmental affect explains only 43% of the total change/variance of green purchase
intention, which is poor whilst that predicting actual green purchase behaviour using
green purchase intention explains only 72% of the total change/variance of the actual
green purchase behaviour.
In analysing the impact of consumers’ demographic factors on the relationship
between green purchase influences (i.e. environmental knowledge and environmental
affect) and green purchase intention, it is found that differences in age, income, education
and occupation of the Sri Lankan consumers do not have a significant influence on
relationship between green purchase influences and green purchase intention in Sri Lanka
although some studies support that these demographics moderate green oriented
behaviour (e.g., Davis, 1993; Simintiras et al., 1993; Ottman and Reilly, 1998; D’Souza
et al., 2007). However, differences in marital status have a significant influence on the
relationship between environmental affect and green purchase intention, i.e. for
unmarried consumers, there is a strong positive relationship between environmental
affect/concern and green purchase intention than married consumers in Sri Lanka. In
addition to this, it is also revealed that gender differences affect the relationship between
environmental concern and green purchase intention, i.e. for female consumers, there is a
strong positive relationship between environmental affect/concern and green purchase
intention in Sri Lanka than male consumers and this is supported by the study of
Samarasinghe and Samarasinghe (2010) on demographic profiles of green consumers in
Sri Lanka. This also reflects a similar finding to the study of Ottman and Reilly (1998).
However, the literature on demographics and green purchase behaviour highlights the
inconclusive findings and contextual dependency (Do Paco et al., 2009).
In further analysis of relationships, it is interestingly found that the relationship
between environmental affect and actual green purchase decision is partially intervened
by green purchased intention in Sri Lanka according to the hierarchical regression
analysis procedure recommended by Baron and Kenny (1986) to test the mediator
relationship. This finding is also consistent with the empirical studies that used the
“theory of reason action” that intention is the most immediately relevant predictor of
corresponding behaviour (Ajzen and Fishhbein, 1977; Ajzen and Fishhbein, 1980).
These findings have definite implications for both marketers as well as national level
policy makers in Sri Lanka. In order to motivate the Sri Lanka consumers to engage in
eco-friendly product purchasing decisions, the marketing messages should be crafted in a
manner that highlight emotional aspect of the product benefits and usage. In addition, Sri
Lankan people should be made aware of environmental issues and their implications
using national level awareness campaigns to enhance their knowledge in green issues and
environmental sustainability. In relation to the FMCG sector, it is also required to
introduce green products at affordable prices in order to target main stream market in a
developing context like Sri Lanka, where there is an inflating economy.

4 Conclusion and further research

Based on the above empirical findings, it is evident that in the Sri Lankan context,
environmental knowledge of consumers is not a significant predictor of green purchase
intention. This finding is inconsistent the findings of empirical studies in Western
countries. This may implies that the Sri Lankan consumers, being in a developing
country, might have a little awareness and poor knowledge on green issues and not grasp
182 G.D. Samarasinghe and D.S.R. Samarasinghe

green issues in a serious manner as they are more concerned on maximising individual
benefits of products. However, environmental affect has been a significant weak
predictor of green purchase intention in Sri Lanka and this finding is consistent with
global literature. This might implies that rather than knowledge, emotional aspect of Sri
Lankan consumer can affect purchase intention towards environmental friendly product
purchase decisions. This might have been influenced by the religious and spiritual values
inherent in the Sri Lankan culture as well as global experience and mind set of the people
of the country. Further, it is evident that unmarried consumers have a more a strong
intention to buy green products than married. This may be due to unmarried consumers
have more freedom in their purchase decision and more disposable income to buy even
expensive green products in Sri Lanka. In parallel to this, it is also revealed that female
consumer have more green purchase intention than male. This may be due to their
emotional feeling and sensitivity towards natural environment. Future studies should
explore antecedents of environmental knowledge and environmental affect in developing
context like Sri Lanka. R2 value of the regression Model 1 (R2 0.43) also implies the
possibility to explore other unique factors such as social class (e.g., new emerging middle
class of Sri Lanka, (Liyanage, 2003)) affecting green purchase intention than
environmental knowledge and environmental affect in Sri Lankan context in future
research.

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