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Eco-friendly
Factors influencing eco-friendly apparel
apparel purchase behavior purchase
behavior
of Bangladeshi young
consumers: case study 139
Md. Sobuj and Adnan Maroof Khan Received 31 October 2019
Revised 10 January 2020
Department of Apparel Engineering, Bangladesh University of Textiles, 29 February 2020
Dhaka, Bangladesh 30 April 2020
30 July 2020
16 September 2020
Md. Ahashan Habib Accepted 19 October 2020
Department of Textile Engineering Management,
Bangladesh University of Textiles, Dhaka, Bangladesh, and
Md. Mazedul Islam
Department of Materials, The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors that influence eco-friendly apparel
purchase behaviors concerning Bangladeshi young consumers in light of the theory of planned behavior.
Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected by a survey among 198 respondents in
Bangladesh in terms of consumer attitude, subjective norm (SN), perceived behavioral control (PBC),
environmental concern (EC), environmental knowledge (EK) and purchase intention (PI). Structural equation
modeling approach was used to find out the influencing factors.
Findings – The study reveals that purchase intention is significantly influenced by attitudes, SN, EC and
EK of consumers. Consumers perceived behaviors variable is always not an accurate predictor to control
actual purchase behavior. SN and EK were found to be highly influential to eco-friendly apparel purchase
patterns among young consumers in Bangladesh.
Research limitations/implications – This study provides key marketing insights for retailers and
practitioners on how strategically they can decide for fashion consumers, specifically the young group in
Bangladesh. Eco-friendly apparel purchase behaviors will gradually influence the retail business contexts for
retailers. The study reveals the need for eco-labeling and marketing strategies of eco-friendly apparel
products among young consumers to communicate benefits and green values among wider consumers.
Findings were restricted to specific young consumers group in Bangladesh and did not examine purchase
behaviors of other consumer segment.

The authors would like to acknowledge the cooperation of the Department of Apparel Engineering,
Bangladesh University of Textiles. The authors also acknowledge the young consumers of
Bangladesh who participated in this study. The authors acknowledge the anonymous reviewers for
their valuable comments in improving the manuscript quality. This research is the outcome of the
project work and has received no external funding.
Authors Contributions: M.S and A.M.K conceived the study and designed the methodology. M.S
collected and analyzed data under A.M.K’s supervision. M.S and M.M.I planned, designed and wrote Research Journal of Textile and
the manuscript with inputs from AM.K. M.S performed software analysis, interpretation, Apparel
Vol. 25 No. 2, 2021
visualization, interpretation and validation of data with input from M.M.I, A.M.K and M.A.H, pp. 139-157
respectively. M.M.I and M.S edited, reviewed, addressed the reviewer comments and proofread the © Emerald Publishing Limited
1560-6074
manuscript with input from A.M.K and M.A.H. All authors reviewed and approved the manuscript. DOI 10.1108/RJTA-10-2019-0052
RJTA Originality/value – The study reveals that Bangladeshi young consumers are becoming concerned about
purchasing apparel products. It provides valuable insights for entrepreneurs, practitioners and marketers to
25,2 trace and perceive purchase behavior of the Bangladeshi young consumers while adopting a strategic
marketing approach.
Keywords Consumer behavior, Theory of planned behavior, Purchase intention,
Eco-friendly apparel, Environmental apparel knowledge

140 Paper type Case study

1. Introduction
Increasing global consumption for textiles and apparel is leading to acute sustainability
issues in terms of environment such as pollution of air, water crisis, landfill, global warming,
resource scarcity and waste generation (Jaiswal and Kant, 2018; Niinimäki et al., 2020). The
recent COVID-19 pandemic has prompted consumers to seriously consider the environmental
impacts of their spending habits from fashion product contexts. Findings by the consultancy
McKinsey and Company reveals that there will be a significant change in consumer purchase
behavior, a surge in online shopping and consumer views on fashion cycles because
consumers are concerned with sustainability more than ever before, and, consequently, there
will be significant changes in the fashion supply chain (Forbes, 2020). A survey shows 76%
of UK adults agree that the COVID-19 incident may be a starting point to be more nature
friendly and adopt eco-friendly products (Emotional logic, 2020). Therefore, it is predicted
that eco-friendly apparel could be one of the top choices for consumers after the Covid-19
pandemic situation. In recent years, ensuring environmental sustainability in the life cycle
stages of textiles and apparel products has been a key priority in the complex global fashion
supply chain (Khan and Islam, 2015; Hiller Connell and Kozar, 2017). Consumers’ demand for
ecological merchandise is increasing, and for sustaining in the global competitive business
environment, companies and retailers must react quickly to the changing consumer needs
(Rahmi et al., 2017). Some consumers care for the environment to such extent that they are
willing to pay more for eco-friendly products (Chen and Tung, 2014). Stakeholders including
manufacturers, buyers, retailers and consumers are under increased pressure (Islam et al.,
2013) to adopt eco-friendly practices in textile, apparel and fashion products (Shamsuzzaman
et al., 2021). Understanding consumer purchase behavior of eco-friendly products is one of
aspects of sustainable fashion research (Mukendi et al., 2020).
Eco-friendly products are increasing in the market and companies’ marketing strategies
regarding ecological practice have become more important (Gam, 2011), targeting a specific
consumer group is a better strategy for selling an eco-friendly product rather than general
(Kang et al., 2013). Mukendi et al. (2020) also emphasized on increasing research into actual
sustainable fashion consumers rather than broad consumers as a direction of future
sustainable fashion research. Green consumers consider environmental issues during
consumption decisions. A purchase can be called green when consumers purchase products
that are eco-friendly and recyclable (Choi and Johnson, 2019). Apart from the western
countries such as the USA and the UK, there has been studies concerning purchase behavior
of green apparel products in Thailand (Maichum et al., 2016), Romania (Pastiu, 2013),
Austria and Lithuania (Liobikiene_ et al., 2017) and EU (Liobikiene_ et al., 2016). Purchase
intention (PI) of foreign products (Haque et al., 2015) and brand image (Muhammad and
Bashir, 2012) also have been studied in Bangladesh but in a limited range. Research reveals
key factors such as demographic parameters, environmental knowledge (EK),
environmental concern (EC), education and income that are influential to the PI of eco-
friendly merchandise (Maichum et al., 2016; Yadav and Pathak, 2016a). From demographic
contexts in Bangladesh, it is felt that the young consumers covering a major portion of the Eco-friendly
total population are more fashion conscious followed by global fashion trends. Moreover, apparel
young consumers are spending more money for purchasing fashion product than before
gradually and projected to increase in coming days. But in our knowledge, rare work has
purchase
been done to measure the young consumers’ PI for eco-friendly apparel especially from behavior
young consumers’ contexts in Bangladesh. Therefore, understanding the factors of PI of
apparel consumers of Bangladesh would help fashion retailers and practitioners in adopting
strategic marketing approach for eco-friendly products. Therefore, driven by key literature 141
analysis and considering the emerging contexts, the formulated objective of this study is to
investigate the interplay of influencing factors of eco-friendly apparel purchase behaviors in
relation to Bangladeshi young consumers in light of the theory of planned behavior (TPB).

2. Eco-friendly apparel
Sustainability in the textile and apparel business has been a matter of talk over the past few
years because of high environmental and social awareness issues (Islam and Khan, 2014).
(Morelli, 2011) in his work defined environmental sustainability as “a condition of balance,
resilience and interconnectedness that allows human society to satisfy its needs while
neither exceeding the capacity of its supporting ecosystems to continue to regenerate the
services necessary to meet those needs nor by our actions diminishing biological diversity.”
Hence, for environmental sustainability, the product should be designed in such a way that
it has a minimum effect upon the environment (Yang et al., 2017). Eco-friendly products are
that have the least adverse effect on the environment. The word “eco-friendly product” is
also known as “green product.” The Oxford Dictionary defined eco-friendly as “not harmful
to the environment (Islam et al., 2020).” Not only products but also a company or firm can be
eco-friendly. Eco-friendly apparels are produced in a way that causes the least possible
damage to the environment. Recycling, biodegradable materials, biochemical (Khan et al.,
2020), organically grown natural fibers, natural dyes and environment-friendly technologies
are used to make eco-friendly apparel (Chang and Watchravesringkan, 2018). They can
reduce the carbon footprint, water footprint and can contribute to environmental
sustainability (Fu and Kim, 2019). Renowned brands like Levi’s, Puma are shifting toward
eco-fashion (Jeffries, 2013). Environmentally friendly consumerism has widened from the
exceptional fashion to the mainstream trends in western society, and research works are
continuously investigating the effects of various aspects, such as EK on consumers’
environmental behaviors (Chang and Watchravesringkan, 2018). In addition, the issue of
sustainability and eco-friendly products is very important from companies’ strategic point
of view (Caniato et al., 2012) and therefore the marketers of these eco-products need to
understand the targeted market to decide their business policy (Sandvik and Stubbs, 2019).

3. Conceptual framework
3.1 Theory of planned behavior
TPB has been used to predict the factors that influence a particular intention, analyze the PI of
different products (Belleau et al., 2007; Liobikiene_ et al., 2016) and green consumer as well
(Wang et al., 2018). TPB is an extended form of theory of reasoned action (TRA) (Madden et al.,
1992) which is a strong prediction tool in behavioral change theories (Hale et al., 2012). TBP
shows that attitude (ATT) toward a certain behavior, subjective norm (SN) and perceived
behavioral control (PBC) influence a person’s intention to perform that behavior. According to
TPB, behavioral intention is the most desired variable to predict specific behavior. The main
difference between TRA and TPB is that TPB has one additional constructs called PBC which
TRA does not have (Taylor and Todd, 1995). Consumers’ intention provides the basis of
RJTA understanding the actual behavior (Yarimoglu and Gunay, 2020). TPB is a well-known social
25,2 cognitive model used for understanding the free will behavior of consumers (Saricam and
Okur, 2019). TPB has been used in various environment-related areas such as green hotels and
restaurants (Kim et al., 2013; Yarimoglu and Gunay, 2020), smart home object (Schill et al.,
2019), green product (Paul et al., 2016), green purchase behavior (Jaiswal and Kant, 2018), eco-
conscious consumer behavior (Hameed et al., 2019) and sustainable fashion (Saricam and Okur,
142 2019), which proves its acceptability and robustness. The factors influencing the eco-friendly
apparel purchase intention will be discussed here. In this study, the intention was regarded as
the willingness to buy eco-friendly apparel.
ATT toward a certain behavior is regarded as someone’s favorable or unfavorable
analysis of that behavior (Ajzen, 1991). It exhibits the consumer’s psychological assessment
of a product (Maichum et al., 2016). ATT is the main predictor of behavioral intention
(Kotchen and Reiling, 2000). Favorable attitudes toward a certain behavior increase the
chance to perform that behavior (Yadav and Pathak, 2016b). The relationship between ATT
and eco-friendly product PI has been studied in previous studies (Mostafa, 2007; Yadav and
Pathak, 2016a; Prakash and Pathak, 2017). (Zhang et al., 2019) in their study mentioned two
types of ATT, general ATT(toward environmental problem) and specific ATT(towards
green product). (Mostafa, 2007) showed a positive relationship exists between ATT and
behavioral intention.
Society’s expectation or pressure sometimes forces a person to perform a behavior which
is termed as the SN (Ajzen, 1991). As people live in society, social influence and suggestion is
an import factor that stimulates pro-environmental behavior (Sweeney et al., 2014). The
opinion of others may influence one’s action (Park, 2000). Social pressure may encourage
consumers to buy eco-friendly products (Biswas and Roy, 2015). According to (Conner and
Armitage, 1998), important people’s suggestions influence the specific behavior of an
individual. When the consumers feel positive about certain behavior for others, they will
behave positively (Hameed et al., 2019).
PBC is another important factor in TPB (DINC and Budic, 2016). PBC is the measure of
how easily a person can perform his behavior. Higher PBC leads to stronger intention to
perform a behavior (Ajzen, 1991). PBC also determines how much control one person has
over his behavior (Hee, 2011). It also takes previous behavior and probable obstacles into its
account (Paul et al., 2016). PBC has two branches, external control and internal control.
Internal control is the control over ones’ traits such as required skill, ability and confidence
to perform a behavior. Higher internal perceived control leads to a higher likelihood to
perform a behavior. When a behavior is free from external barriers and it is easy to perform,
the behavior is externally controllable. A behavior can be easily performed when it is free
from external difficulties (Kidwell and Jewell, 2003). All these factors (ATT, SN and PBC
collectively influence the behavioral intention (purchase intention [PI]) which is the focal
point of TPB. It is the measure of how much a person is willing to perform a particular
behavior and his effort to perform a behavior. Higher positive ATT, SN and PBC lead to a
higher possibility to perform a behavior and vice versa (Ajzen, 1991).

3.2 Inclusion of new construction in theory of planned behavior

Along with ATT, SN and PBC, it was recommended by (Ajzen, 1991) that new variables
may be enclosed for deeper understanding and methods may be additionally altered for a
similar purpose. Inclusion of different variables increases the predictive power of the model
across various domains (Afroz et al., 2015; Paul et al., 2016; Jaiswal and Kant, 2018). This
study has enclosed two extra variables (EC and EK) by taking support from different kinds
of literature.
3.3 Environmental concern Eco-friendly
EC is the degree of awareness of the folk concerning the environment and giving support apparel
and temperament to resolve those environment-related problems personally (Hu et al., 2010).
Because of growth in consumer’s environmental consciousness, companies are trying to
purchase
market themselves as eco-friendly by boosting eco-friendly products and services (Choi and behavior
Johnson, 2019). EC is usually measured on personal level in environmental behavior analysis
(Hines et al., 1987). The effects of EC on behavioral intention have been investigated in
previous studies. EC imparts significant and positive impact in the case of eco-friendly items 143
PI as stated by (Pagiaslis and Krontalis, 2014) in their study on Greek consumers. (Maichum
et al., 2016) found a positive impact of EC on the PI of green products among Thai
consumers. Similarly, (Schill et al., 2019) reported a positive impact of EC on eco-friendly
objects among French consumers. In consumer behavior, EC is a determinant factor that
positively influences the PI (Albayrak et al., 2013). Concern for the environment may lead to
increasing the possibilities for buying eco-friendly items (Kalafatis et al., 1999). EC may also
affect ATT of the consumer for green merchandise which can again impart a positive
influence on the PI for the eco-friendly product (Mostafa, 2007; Yadav and Pathak, 2016b).

3.4 Environmental knowledge

EK is the information that a person possesses about the ecology, environment and the interaction
of individuals with the environment and ecology (Kim and Damhorst, 1998). In another sense, it is
the individual knowledge about environment-related topics (Conraud-Koellner and Rivas-Tovar,
2009). Knowledge is the precondition of an action that is thought to be antecedent of ATT in TPB
although the actual relationship between these is still unknown (Levine and Strube, 2012). EK has
been used recently by researchers to study consumer behavior and with the increasing
knowledge about the environment, it is expected by the researchers that knowledge will influence
consumers’ PI (Yusof et al., 2013). In some cases, consumers are willing to pay high prices for
green products when they have EK (Choi and Johnson, 2019). EK influences positively the PI of
the eco-friendly product significantly (Mostafa, 2009; Yadav and Pathak, 2016b; Jaiswal and
Kant, 2018). Also, there are some exceptions where EK does not significantly impact on PI of
green products (Maichum et al., 2016; Ahamad and Ariffin, 2018)

3.5 Hypotheses development

Discussion about the different kinds of literature in the previous section and considering the
relation between different constructs, the following hypotheses regarding the relationship
between ATT, SN, PBC, EC, EK and eco-friendly apparel PI were proposed for our present
study in context. This has been shown in Figure 1:

H1. ATT has a positive and significant influence on Bangladeshi young consumers’
eco-friendly apparel PI.
H2. SN has a positive and significant influence on Bangladeshi young consumers’ eco-
friendly apparel PI.
H3. PBC has a positive and significant influence on Bangladeshi young consumers’ eco-
friendly apparel PI.
H4. EC has a positive and significant influence on Bangladeshi young consumers’ eco-
friendly apparel PI.
H5. EK has a positive and significant influence on Bangladeshi young consumers’ eco-
friendly apparel PI.
RJTA
25,2

144

Figure 1.
Proposed framework

4. Research methodology
4.1 Sampling method
To research the targeted sample group of different locations of the country, an online survey
was conducted. The respondents of the study were students of different public and private
universities, college (Grade 11 to 12) and young people working in different government and
non-government organizations. The forms were sent to various online platforms of different
universities, colleges and other organizations like Facebook group and personal
communication through email. Previous studies also considered young consumers in their
studies although they have low buying power (Kautish and Sharma, 2019; Tan et al., 2019) as
they are dependent on their parents for their expenses. Young people of the age of 18 to 35
years (Chakraborty, 2016) were the question of interest for the study. This study focused on the
young consumers’ market segment as it will be prominent when it matures. The questionnaires
were adapted from other pieces of literature based on the context of the study. Convenience
sampling was used for data collection. At first, a pilot survey was done on ten respondents to
improve the quality of the questionaries, so that respondents can easily understand and can
respond to the questions properly during main survey. Then, a total of 320 online survey forms
were sent to the targeted sampling group from which 198 people returned their responses
which represents a response rate of 61.88%. Finally, 145 responses were selected for further
analysis after filtering incomplete responses and outliers. Table 1 shows the demographic data

Gender Male 81.38%

Female 18.62%
Age 18–20 24.83%
21–25 64.14%
26–30 8.97%
31–35 2.07%
Education level College (grade 11 to 12) 11.03%
BSc or equivalent 62.77%
Table 1. MSc or equivalent 11.03%
Demographics data Post-Graduation 15.17%
of the selected respondents for further analysis. (Hair et al., 2013) and (Bentler and Chou, 1987) Eco-friendly
suggested that there should be a minimum of five responses/items. Hence, 120 responses are apparel
required at minimum Therefore, 145 samples satisfy this prior condition.
purchase
4.2 Measurements
behavior
To conduct the study, constructs were picked from different relevant kinds of literature.
Among these constructs, ATT was measured on a five-point Likert-type differential scale and 145
the rest of the constructs were measured on a same five-point scale where 1 = “strongly
disagree” and 5 = “strongly agree”. A six-item scale was adopted for ATT from (Kim and Han,
2010). A two-item scale was taken from (Yadav and Pathak, 2016b) for SN while three items
were drawn for PBC from (Kim and Han, 2010). A validated five-item scale for EC was adopted
from (Mostafa, 2009) and five-item scale for EK was adopted from (Mostafa, 2007). Finally, five-
item scale was taken from (Kim et al., 2013) for purchase intention. For all the items, five-point
Likert-type scale was taken. Details of each construct are shown in the Appendix.

5. Analysis and result

5.1 Analysis of data
Data collected from the survey were explored with the help of SPSS 25 and AMOS 23 in
windows 10 OS. AMOS is an extra SPSS module, which is used for structural equation
modeling. AMOS can be used to evaluate hypothesized relationship between variables and it
is also possible to estimate the degree of strength between variables. After removing the
incomplete responses, using z-score value outliers were also filtered (Clark-Carter, 2014).
The filtered data were analyzed by (SEM). SEM has two main steps in analyzing the data.
The first step was confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and the later was model fitness and
hypothesis testing to find the relationship between the dependent and independent variables
(Anderson and Gerbing, 1988).

5.2 Exploratory factor analysis

Before performing CFA, data should undergo an EFA. A Bartlett’s Sphericity test (1713.735;
significant value is 0.000) and The Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO) measure (0.846) indicate the
sample adequacy for EFA and there is a significant correlation among variables. The
reference value for KMO is that it should be at least 0.5 (Ikediashi et al., 2014). KMO
value indicates the sample represents 84.5% of the population. So, it represents the sample
adequacy. EFA was done to reduce the data and to explore the hidden structure from a large
data set. The variables in which the factor loading values were at least 0.60 are shown in
Table 1. After varimax rotation, it was found that six uncovered constructs had Eigenvalues
over “1” shown in Figure 2, which is expected as the study took six constructs into
consideration. Further, those six items were responsible for 75.251% of the total variance,
which paves the way for the final study as shown in Table 2 (Hair et al., 2013).

5.3 Measurement model

CFA was done to analyze the model fitness of the measurement model, the convergent
validity and discriminant validity. The measurement model fitness was evaluated using (1)
Normed Chi-square ( x 2 /df), (2) Tucker–Lewis index (TLI), (3) Comparative Fit Index (CFI),
(4) Incremental Fit Index (IFI) and (5) Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA).
A fit model has TLI, CFI, IFI values exceeding 0.90, RMSEA value below 0.08 and x 2 /df
value below 3.0 (Hair et al., 2013). The present study’s statistics were within acceptable
limits. ( x 2 /df = 1.683, IFI = 0.936, TLI = 0.924, CFI = 0.935 and RMSEA = 0.043).
RJTA
25,2

146

Figure 2.
Eigenvalue vs
component number
after varimax
rotation

Component
1 2 3 4 5 6

ATT1 0.816
ATT2 0.745
ATT3 0.785
ATT4 0.752
ATT6 0.783
SN1 0.857
SN2 0.825
PBC2 0.844
PBC3 0.878
EC1 0.702
EC2 0.807
EC3 0.757
EC4 0.759
EK1 0.700
EK2 0.822
EK3 0.803
EK4 0.758
PI1 0.648
PI2 0.804
PI3 0.731
Extraction method: Principal component analysis
Table 2. Rotation method: Varimax with Kaiser normalization
Rotated component
matrix* Note: *Rotation converged in six iterations
To pass the convergent validity test, factor loading for each of the items should be at least Eco-friendly
0.60, the average variance extracted (AVE) value should exceed 0.50 and composite apparel
reliability (CR) should exceed 0.70 for each construct (Aggelidis and Chatzoglou, 2012). To
evaluate internal consistency, Cronbach’s alpha was also measured. The alpha value should
purchase
be more than 0.70 (Mostafa, 2009; Hair et al., 2013). Table 4 shows that all the mentioned behavior
values exceed the cut-off point.
147

Initial eigenvalues Rotation sums of squared loadings

Total % of Variance Cumulative (%) Total % of Variance Cumulative (%)

7.911 39.554 39.554 3.648 18.241 18.241

2.223 11.116 50.670 2.990 14.948 33.189
1.433 7.167 57.838 2.658 13.291 46.480
1.319 6.596 64.434 2.106 10.529 57.009
1.140 5.702 70.136 1.940 9.699 66.707 Table 3.
1.023 5.115 75.251 1.709 8.543 75.251 Total variance
0.693 3.467 78.718 explained

Constructs Factor loading S.M.C Cronbach’s alpha CR AVE

Attitude (ATT)
ATT1 0.82 0.67 0.900 0.899 0.642
ATT2 0.78 0.61
ATT3 0.82 0.67
ATT4 0.73 0.53
ATT6 0.85 0.72
Social norm (SN)
SN1 0.83 0.69 0.894 0.903 0.825
SN2 0.98 0.96
Perceived behavioral control (PBC)
PBC2 0.84 0.71 0.783 0.787 0.649
PBC3 0.77 0.59
Environmental concern (EC)
EC1 0.60 0.36 0.813 0.813 0.524
EC2 0.77 0.59
EC3 0.73 0.53
EC4 0.78 0.61
Environmental knowledge (EK)
EK1 0.66 0.44 0.864 0.867 0.623
EK2 0.82 0.67
EK3 0.88 0.77 Table 4.
EK4 0.78 0.61 Standardized factor
Purchase intention (PI) loadings, composite
PI1 0.80 0.64 0.834 0.833 0.626 reliability, average,
PI2 0.74 0.55 variance extracted
PI3 0.83 0.69 and Cronbach’s a
 p
RJTA On the other hand, in Table 5, AVE of each of the constructs obtained was compared
p with
25,2 the squared correlation values. The discriminant validity was confirmed as AVE of the
constructs was greater than the squared correlation values (Nunnally and Bernstein, 1994).

5.4 Structural model

SEM can use various models to illustrate the relationship between observed variables and
148 can be used to evaluate the overall model fitness (Lomax and Schumacker, 2004; Hair et al.,
2013). The fit statistics of the structural model met the fulfillment criteria ( x 2 /df = 1.483, TLI
= 0.921, CFI = 0. 935, IFI = 0.936, RMSEA = 0.069). The hypothesized model was evaluated
by standard regression weight and p-values to estimate the effect of independent variables
on the dependent variable shown in Table 6. The adjusted R2 value was 0.48 for this model
which is more than the several previous studies (Yadav and Pathak, 2016b; Jaiswal and
Kant, 2018; Watts and Chi, 2019)

5.5 Multicollinearity
Multicollinearity or collinearity test has been done to check if there are any correlations among
two or more independent variable otherwise the multicollinearity can abrupt the estimated
values (Alin, 2010). As per the rule of thumb, if the variance inflation factor of each construct is
above five, collinearity among the independent constructs may arise (Sarstedt et al., 2014)

ATT SN PBC EC EK PI

ATT 0.801
SN 0.409** 0.908
PBC 0.269** 0.341** 0.806
EC 0.498** 0.268** 0.131 0.724
EK 0.499** 0.501** 0.356** 0.334** 0.789
Table 5. PI 0.562** 0.500** 0.279** 0.428** 0.589** 0.791
Correlation among
p
constructs Notes: The diagonal italic values represent AVE. Significance at: **p < 0.01

Hypothesis Path Estimate t-Value p-value Result

H1 ATT ! PI 0.235 3.321 0.002 Supported

Table 6. H2 SN ! PI 0.272 2.712 0.008 Supported
Standardized H3 PBC ! PI 0.011 0.222 0.824 Rejected
regression weights H4 EC ! PI 0.214 0.040 0.043 Supported
and p-values H5 EK ! PI 0.317 4.0 23 0.000 Supported

Variables Collinearity tolerance VIF

ATT 0.604 1.657

SN 0.689 1.450
Table 7. PBC 0.832 1.202
Variance inflation EC 0.740 1.352
factor EK 0.617 1.633
6. Discussion of findings Eco-friendly
The present study was attempted to measure the direct influence of ATT, SN, PBC, EC and EK apparel
on PI. Table 6 shows that most of the hypotheses (H1, H2, H4, H5) were accepted based on the
coefficient (b ) and p-value. The result shows that ATT and SN have positive significant impact
purchase
on PI and support H1 (b = 0.235, p < 0.01) and H2 (b = 0.272, p < 0.01). This concludes that behavior
young people of Bangladesh are likely to purchase eco-friendly apparel. This also shows that
young consumers are more likely to purchase eco-friendly when they are influenced by other
people around them. EC has the lowest positive impact on PI but still supports H4 (b = 0.214, 149
p < 0.05) while EK has the most positive influence on PI and support H5 (b = 0.317, p < 0.01).
PBC has a negative impact on PI but H3 was rejected because of higher p-value.
The average value obtained from responses for the PI is 3.87/5. This average value indicates
that the respondent “Agrees” on the matter that they have PI for eco-friendly apparel. Among
respondents, the PI score for males (3.97/5) is greater than females (3.77/5). Willingness to pay
for an environment-friendly product can vary among males and females, and there are few cases
where there is no significant difference between males’ and females’ PI (Fisher et al., 2012). For
respondents between 21 and 25 years of age, this value is the highest (3.98) compared to other
age ranges. Undergraduate level respondents show the highest PI (3.97/5). Therefore, the males
of 21–25 years of age who are undergraduate show the highest PI for eco-friendly apparel.

7. Implication
7.1 Theoretical implication
Studies suggests that understanding the decision-making process of consumers is a difficult
thing (Diddi et al., 2019) .This study contributes to the understanding of eco-friendly apparel
consumer behavior by providing evidences. In this study, the TPB was used to evaluate the
PI of eco-friendly apparel in Bangladesh and the model was further extended by adding
other constructs (EC and EK) and provides an interesting way for understanding the PI
using SEM method. This is one of the first studies to identify the factors that influence the PI
of consumers in the context of Bangladesh and will be useful for academia. (Connell, 2010) in
his study stated that ATT and knowledge about eco-friendly products are the barriers that
have a negative impact on product acquisition. But the result of this study concludes that
ATT, SN, EC and EK are the determinant factors for PI and impact PI positively. (Nam et al.,
2017) concluded that ATT, SN and PBC directly influence the PI for the environmental
friendly product in the USA. (Yadav and Pathak, 2016b) suggested that ATT, SN, PBC, EC
and EK, all have a direct impact on PI in case of green product. From this study, it is evident
that PBC has no impact on PI in the case of Bangladesh. Hence, PI for same product can vary
among different nations based on the influencing factors. This study will help to filter the
important factors influencing the PI of Bangladeshi young consumers. The results of this
study can be presented in multichannel social media, seminar, symposium, conferences and
workshops to raise awareness among consumers as well as marketers. The study can be
included in the consumer behavior curriculum in Bangladesh so that researchers, scholar
and students get more insight into young people consuming behavior.

7.2 Practical implication

In this competitive world of marketing, every organization would like to retain its customers and
satisfy their needs. So, for marketing and selling eco-friendly products, they need to understand
the customers’ demand, preference and taste to obtain a competitive advantage and sustainable
growth (Panda et al., 2020). This study will help to grow the eco-friendly apparel business
contexts. Such as retails companies in Bangladesh moving as eco-friendly adopts green
marketing strategies showing their concerns for environment using eco-friendly messages in
RJTA their marketing policies. But sometimes their messages do not suit well for consumers as
25,2 marketer do not understand their behavior perfectly which leads to bad reputation for the
company. This study contributes to gain insight on what are the reasons behind acceptance or
rejection of a product. It shows that strategic approaches by fashion retailers and product
developers in the market strategically to gain acceptance among the customers and survive in
the competitive market, which is key to business growth. This study has developed a theoretical
150 model in which the direct influence of various factors to PI was measured. This finding may
help the market policymakers, local brands and retailers to develop the marketing strategy for
eco-friendly apparel products while enjoying competitive advantages.
As the study found EK had the strongest influence on PI, marketers need to provide
enough information regarding the eco-friendly nature of the product to the consumer by eco-
labeling, green certification such as GOTS and Oeko-Tex. Eco-labels could be the primary
means of defining eco-friendly products versus those that are not eco-friendly in nature, and it
can be used as a marketing tool (Testa et al., 2015; Perez and Lonsdale, 2018). Some customers
may find it difficult to understand the label on the product but still want to buy green products
(D’Souza et al., 2006). In that case, retailers and local brands can instruct the sales personnel so
that they explain the meanings of eco-label symbols, which may help customers for choosing
the right apparel. If EK about eco-friendly products can be spread among young consumers,
they may share this with others and may encourage more people to purchase.
EC had the least impact on PI among Bangladeshi young consumers. The government should
pay more attention to spread awareness regarding sustainability so that consumers pay more
attention to align their purchasing behavior with EC. Environmental education in school, college
and university level may boost up EK and EC. Environmental education means the education
about the environment (awareness), in the environment (realizing the problem) and for the
environment (taking initiatives). The consumer should receive positive information about eco-
friendly apparel products via a proper marketing strategy to form a positive ATT. The consumer
may sometimes show a negative ATT toward mobile advertisement (Tsang et al., 2004).
Manufacturers and retailers of eco-friendly products should give enough proof to the customer
that their product is actually eco-friendly in nature to boost consumer’s confidence to buy it.
PBC had an insignificant impact on PI, which indicates consumer has no control over
buying behavior while taking the decision to buy eco-friendly apparel in Bangladesh. Though
young consumers have EK and EC that influence the PI positively, they are unable to own eco-
friendly apparel when they want to buy it because there is lack of prominent retail shops that
particularly sell eco-friendly products, lack of supply, EC and financial barrier among young
consumers. Retail shop may be placed on strategic locations where consumers can easily find
the desired apparel at the right time. Government could attract investors to this sector by
relaxing taxes, easy loan facilities, awards, recognition and regulations flexibilities to the retail
entrepreneur who want to move toward eco-friendly apparel business. Policymakers of this
sector must think so that the environment can be protected from being harmed by textile
products. The protection of the environment is a prerequisite for sustainability.

8. Conclusions, limitations and recommendation for future research

This study successfully applied the TPB to explain consumers’ eco-friendly apparel buying
behavior and a seminal study from Bangladesh fashion retails business contexts. It reveals that
PBC may not be an accurate variable to predict actual behavioral control. Relationships among
constructs in the TPB were also supported by the findings of this study. These findings are
environmental apparel attitudes, apparel resource conservation concerns, SN (e.g. important
people’s opinion buying sustainable apparel) and PBC (e.g. perceptions about to control
sustainable apparel buying behavior) influenced sustainable apparel buying intention. Actual Eco-friendly
apparel buying behavior was influenced by buying intentions. apparel
The study was limited to measure the PI of eco-friendly apparel; there was no attempt to
measure the actual buying behavior. The study has used convenience sampling. So, the
purchase
limitation of this method should also be remembered in replicating the study. The behavior
exploratory power of the proposed model can be further improved in future studies. There
may be an underlying cross relationship between the constructs of the model which has not
been studied here. The study was limited to young consumers; other demographics can be 151
considered for the generalized report. Product price significantly and negatively impacted the
purchase behavior in some cases (Liobikiene_ et al., 2017) as eco-friendly raw materials are
costly in some cases (Montero, 2009). Second-hand eco-friendly clothes can be a solution in
this regard. Both price and second-hand apparel PI can be implied in the case of Bangladesh
in future research. (Mukendi et al., 2020) listed several other important factors like self image,
desire to be well dressed, environmental guilt that could affect the PI (purchase intention).

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RJTA Appendix
25,2 Questionnaires of the constructor measuring items:
Gender
 Male
 Female
Age
156  18–20
 21–25
 26–30
 31–35
Education Level
 College (Grade 11 to 12)
 BSc or equivalent
 MSc or equivalent
 Post-graduation
Attitude (Kim and Han, 2010)
To me buying eco-friendly cloth is:
 ATT1: Extremely bad (1)/extremely good (5)
 ATT2: extremely undesirable (1)/extremely desirable (5)
 ATT3: extremely unenjoyable (1)/extremely enjoyable (5)
 ATT4: extremely foolish (1)/extremely wise (5)
 ATT5: extremely unfavorable (1)/extremely favorable (5)
 ATT6: extremely unpleasant (1)/extremely pleasant (5)
Subjective Norm (Chan and Lau, 2000)
 SN1: People who are close to me want me to buy eco-friendly clothing for my personal use
 SN2: People who are close to me want me to would think I should buy eco-friendly
clothes for personal use
Perceived Behavioral Control (Kim and Han, 2010)
 PBC1: Whether I buy eco-friendly clothing or not instead of non-ecofriendly product is
completely up to me.
 PBC2: I have resources, time and opportunities to by eco-friendly clothing
 PBC3: I have the confidence that if I want, I can purchase eco-friendly clothing instead of
non-eco-friendly apparel
Environmental Concern (Mostafa, 2009)
 EC1: The balance of nature is very delicate and it can be easily disturbed
 EC2: People’s carefree natural resources use can disrupt the environmental balance
 EC3: People should take care of the environment for their own survival
 EC4: The resource in the environment is limited
 EC5: Mankind has the right to alter the natural environment for their need *
Environmental Knowledge (Mostafa, 2007)
 EK1: I know that I buy clothing that is safe for the environment
 EK2: I know more about recycling than general people
  EK3: I am very knowledgeable about environmental issues Eco-friendly
 EK4: I understand the various symbols and terms related to the environment on clothing apparel
 EK5: I know how to select products and packages that minimize the amount of waste purchase
dumping behavior
Purchase Intention (Kim et al., 2013)
 PI1: I will buy eco-friendly clothing for personal use
 PI2: I am willing to buy eco-friendly clothing for personal use: Strongly disagree 157
 PI3: I will make an effort to buy eco-friendly clothing
*Item’s scale was reversed during analysis.

Corresponding author
Md. Sobuj can be contacted at: mdsobujbutex@gmail.com

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