Journal of Cleaner Production 363 (2022) 132509

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Journal of Cleaner Production

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro

Green marketing innovation: Opportunities from an environmental

education analysis in young consumers
Vanessa Prieto-Sandoval a, Luz Elba Torres-Guevara b, *, César García-Díaz a
a
School of Economics and Business, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Carrera 7 No. 40B – 36, Ed. Jorge Hoyos Vásquez, S.J., Piso 4, Bogotá, Colombia
b
International School of Economic and Administrative Sciences, Universidad de La Sabana, Campus Universitario del Puente del Común, Km. 7 Autopista Norte de
Bogotá, Edificio Ad-Portas, Piso 2A, Chía, Cundinamarca, Colombia

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Handling Editor: Cecilia Maria Villas Bôas de As a society, we are aiming to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, and one of the most
Almeida important challenges is fostering responsible production and consumption. Green marketing campaigns and
instruction in university curricula are an opportunity to influence producers’ and consumers’ decision-making
Keywords: process in a positive way. This research aims to understand the instructional effects of non-compulsory uni­
Green marketing innovation
versity courses linked to sustainability and the circular economy (SCE) on students’ motivations and behavior.
Young consumer behavior
We analyze students’ proclivities to consume products and develop more sustainable habits before and after
Circular economy
Sustainable development enrolling in SCE courses. Results confirm that the courses impacted students’ propensities toward sustainable
SDGs consumption. Therefore, the biggest changes in the six dimensions underlying green consumption reveal four key
recommendations for developing a green marketing strategy. We recommend firms to 1) engage in green edu­
cation, 2) create community, 3) be aware of consumer diversity, and 4) not differentiate by gender. For this
reason, we argue that university education may greatly influence students’ mindset concerning sustainable
behavior. Results also revealed no significant gender differences, which contrasts with the differentiated
behavior found in extant studies on older populations.

1. Introduction
Responsible production and consumption (the twelfth SDG) are sig­
nificant challenges societies currently face due to the ever-growing
scarcity of the natural resources needed to produce goods and ser­
vices. The culture of disposal and the linear economy are the culprits of
environmental pollution, resource exhaustion, and climate change
(Booi-Chen and Teck-Chai, 2009; Liu et al., 2016). Consumers are no
longer the last link in the production chain. Quite to the contrary,
consumers have a key role in closing the cycle by recovering, recycling,
or reusing materials in new production cycles within the circular
economy framework (UN, 2015). Hence, consumers can make sustain­
able decisions based on information coming from a variety of sources
such as green marketing strategies (firms), institutional outreach pro­
grams (government), and formal education (schools and universities).
Several studies have analyzed individuals’ motivations for engaging
in sustainable consumption (Abdulrazak and Quoquab, 2018; Kollmuss
and Agyeman, 2002). This study follows the works developed by de
Carvalho et al. (2015) and Jaca et al. (2018) regarding the motivations
of green consumers. According to these authors, green consumer moti­
vations are encapsulated by the following six dimensions: the sense of
retribution, access to information, labelling and peer pressure, health
issues, crisis scenario (de Carvalho et al., 2015), and the circular econ­
omy. The dimension sense of retribution (SR) refers to the personal
satisfaction that individuals can feel when making responsible decisions
that reduce their impact on the environment (Maiteny, 2002). Access to
information (AI) pertains to the media, internet, and key information
sources of environmental damage that promote environmental aware­
ness (Navas-Sabater et al., 2002). Labelling and peer pressure (LPP) refers
to people’s consumption habits and the influence of those habits on
community. The dimension health issues (HI) represents attitudes toward
buying sustainable products from the lens of their impact on health;
these attitudes include eating organic food and reducing meat con­
sumption. Crisis scenarios (CS) represents situations framed by individ­
ual or regional economic difficulties that can prompt consumers to make
better choices about what and where they buy. Finally, the circular

* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: juliethv.prieto@javeriana.edu.co (V. Prieto-Sandoval), luz.torres3@unisabana.edu.co (L.E. Torres-Guevara), ce.garciad@javeriana.edu.co
(C. García-Díaz).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2022.132509
Received 30 September 2021; Received in revised form 20 May 2022; Accepted 30 May 2022
Available online 5 June 2022
0959-6526/© 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-
nc-nd/4.0/).
V. Prieto-Sandoval et al.
economy (CE) dimension is intrinsically related to the motivation to
avoid waste, reduce pollution-generating behaviors, and apply the 3R
tenets (reduce, reuse, and recycle) (Ferdousi and Qiang, 2016).
In this way, knowledge about environmental issues is key to
achieving pro-environmental behavior (Carmi et al., 2015; Frick et al.,
2004). Consequently, environmental education can encourage people to
adopt environmentally friendly behaviors (Suárez-Perales et al., 2021;
Varela-Candamio et al., 2018; Zsóka et al., 2013). According to Agenda
21 (United Nations, 1993), education is a key element in promoting
sustainable development and improving people’s capacity to face the
environmental problems generated by the current economic model and
globalization. Agenda 21 also points out that “[e]nvironmental educa­
tion should be included in and should run throughout the other disci­
plines of the formal education curriculum at all levels—to foster a sense
of responsibility for the state of the environment and to teach students
how to monitor, protect, and improve it” (WCED, 1987, p. 117). Thanks
to this call, many higher education institutions worldwide have included
in their academic programs not only a variety of courses on sustain­
ability but also diverse research initiatives and community outreach
(Blanco-Portela et al., 2018, Leal Leal Filho et al., 2021; 2016).
A key point in this process is students’ attitudes toward sustainable
consumption. For example, the undergraduate student population con­
stitutes a driving force that can induce changes in their immediate
surroundings, such as their homes and companies where they will
eventually work (Mont et al., 2014). In the academic literature, several
studies have analyzed how courses on environmental issues impact
students’ behavior when acting as consumers. For instance, Sidiropoulos
(2018) evaluated the changes in 1239 students’ attitudes toward sus­
tainability in non-compulsory courses from higher education in­
stitutions in Australia, Italy, and Malaysia. The results showed that
environmental education has a different impact on the students
depending on their connection to nature and their demographic,
educational, and situational context. Sales de Aguiar and Paterson
(2018) carried out an experiment based on a real-world problem at a
Scottish university, with the participation of accounting undergraduate
students. The curriculum included sustainability courses. They found
that students increased their awareness and positive response to sus­
tainability issues after participating in the experiment. In a recent study
involving business students, Suárez-Perales et al. (2021) reported that
environmental education generates individual concern and a willingness
to participate in pro-environmental actions. Sánchez-Carracedo et al.
(2021) carried out an investigation in four Spanish universities and
studied the perception of sustainable development in 942 students.
These students belonged to nine different courses in an undergraduate
program in education. They compared the perception of fourth-year
students against those of first-year students. The results showed that
students improved their competencies in sustainability, even though the
authors claimed that the students’ learning potential was not fully
achieved.
In addition, among the potential effects of varied socio-demographic
factors, gender keeps occupying a central interest. Our data provides an
opportunity to inspect gender effects in student populations. The focus
on gender lies in the fact that there has been a salient research interest in
understanding the relation between gender and sustainability (Mein­
zen-Dick et al., 2014). This has implications that range from the asso­
ciation between firm-level environmentally related decisions and the
gender composition of boards of directors (e.g., Kassinis et al. (2016)) to
gender-related responsible practices and their accountability (e.g., Miles
(2011)). The extant research has concluded that the relation between
gender and sustainability needs more investigation (Meinzen-Dick et al.,
2014).
The present study aims to analyze the impact of instruction in non-
compulsory courses related to sustainability and the circular economy.
We also explore potential opportunities for innovations in green mar­
keting according to young consumers’ motivations, in line with the re­
sults. To achieve this goal, this study collected data from 210 students
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Journal of Cleaner Production 363 (2022) 132509
from three different universities in Colombia, from 2018 to 2021,
through a survey given twice to the same participating subjects: before
and after the course. This study poses the following research questions:
• RQ1: Are there any significant changes within young consumers’
motivations across the six motivational dimensions before and after
enrollment in a sustainability-oriented course?
• RQ2: Should green marketing strategies be gender differentiated in
young populations?
• RQ3: Which of young consumers’ motivations can be effectively
tackled through green marketing strategies?
The contribution of this work is threefold. First, this study makes an
intra-individual comparison that makes it possible to illustrate the
impact of non-compulsory sustainability courses on students’ motiva­
tions to become greener consumers; this analysis is vital for designing
academic offers with practical relevance. Second, this study evaluates
changes in consumers’ motivations, as well as their attitude towards
purchasing sustainable products. And third, it provides recommenda­
tions of green marketing communication strategies among university
students.
This paper is organized as follows: Section 2 discusses the literature
on sustainable consumption and green marketing. Section 3 explains the
methodology used to carry out the study. Section 4 presents and dis­
cusses the results, and Section 5 presents key conclusions and
contributions.
2. Sustainable consumption and green marketing
2.1. Green consumers’ motivations
Green consumers are concerned with acquiring environmentally
friendly products, recycling, saving resources, and promoting shared
values associated with eco-innovations adoption (Jaca et al., 2018;
Jansson et al., 2010). They may also push firms to develop sustainable
products and green strategies (Ginsberg and Bloom, 2004), although
there exists a high degree of heterogeneity among green consumers
themselves (Golob and Kronegger, 2019; Haan et al., 2018). It is also
known that environmentally friendly attitudes do not fully imply that
consumers behave in environmentally friendly ways (Kollmuss and
Agyeman, 2002). Furthermore, consumption decisions related to
spending money on green products may not be fully associated with a
proclivity to adopt sustainable behaviors (Devinney et al., 2010). So, to
address this issue, Devinney and colleagues suggest society advocates for
consumer social responsibility.
In the literature on sustainable consumption, several studies have
analyzed people’s attitudes, level of knowledge, and responsible con­
sumption practices. For example, Orzan et al. (2018) analyzed the
behavior of consumers in Romania concerning sustainable packaging,
finding that most of them are aware of the impact of packaging on the
environment and therefore they prefer to buy paper, glass, and card­
board packaging. Likewise, Alfiero et al. (2019) studied food waste
management in Italy, finding that optimization of such process promotes
the development of sustainability.
Other works have studied consumer motivations, finding, for
example, that many consumers are increasingly inclined to use repair
services for electronic devices, clothing, or furniture (Laitala et al.,
2021); others have found that sustainable development activities are
associated with their environmental attitudes (Fraj and Martinez, 2007).
Various studies suggest that women are more prone to buy sustainable
products and services and to encourage sustainable production and
consumption at companies (Brécard et al., 2009; Graafland, 2020; Tor­
res-Guevara et al., 2021). In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the
exploratory research of Kirk and Rifkin (2020) provides evidence that
novel consumers’ behaviors are linked to the satisfaction derived from
carrying out do-it-yourself projects such as creating furniture,
V. Prieto-Sandoval et al.
gardening, cooking, or making protective masks with recycled items.
Likewise, the literature reports that older consumers tend to be less
active regarding environmental causes and lean less toward adopting
sustainable behaviors such as restricted car use (Jansson et al., 2010),
recycling activities, or efficient use of resources to mitigate climate
change (Semenza et al., 2008). However, this does not suggest that the
more mature segments of the population cannot be responsible con­
sumers. On the contrary, the pandemic has shown that older consumers
in Italy have an optimistic attitude towards the future and have adopted
pro-environmental behaviors, which may broaden the consumer base
for sustainable products (Peluso et al., 2021).
Other studies claim that young people are usually more motivated to
buy sustainable products because they have been highly exposed to
environmental education and because the media provides information
about social and environmental challenges worldwide. The New York
Times recently published an article titled “Nature Shows Are Hot Again”
to discuss how major streaming platforms are investing in productions
with environmental and wildlife content (Koblin, 2020).
Despite all these achievements, certain barriers hinder the develop­
ment of responsible consumer behavior, such as the quality and aging of
goods, technical difficulties in repairing and recycling, and the relatively
low price of new products (Laitala et al., 2021). The COVID-19
pandemic has brought to the fore new challenges for responsible con­
sumption and production, especially in waste packaging and the
dumping of newly disposable materials into the waste stream. For
instance, waste packaging due to single-use plastic increased between
250 and 300 percent during the pandemic due to the prioritization of
compliance with biosecurity measures. Biosafe materials also include
disposable masks and plastic gloves, whose use has quickly worsened
waste generation (Love, 2020). Moreover, some reusable utensil pro­
grams were suspended, such as IKEA’s reusable bags (Love, 2020) and
reusable coffee cups (Hardie, 2021).
2.2. The contribution of green marketing to sustainable consumption
The term “green marketing” first emerged as “ecological marketing,”
which was “concerned with all marketing activities that have served to
help cause environmental problems and that may serve to provide a
remedy for environmental problems” (Hennion and Kinnear, 1976, p. 1).
The 1970s were especially stimulating for this subfield of knowledge due
to the growing environmental awareness around a variety of events.
These include the plastics revolution as a by-product derived from fossil
fuel exploitation; that decade’s oil crisis, which accelerated technolog­
ical improvement for material use efficiency; suspicions about the
damage caused by pesticides, based on Rachel Carson’s works (e.g., Si­
lent Spring (1962) and The Sense of Wonder (1965); the green revolution
of agriculture; the environmental movement; the hippie and spiritual
movements and their link to nature; and the emergence of the concept of
sustainable development (WCED, 1987), among others. As a result,
several companies crafted strategies focused on designing environmen­
tally friendly products, and existing corporations began to pay more
attention to environmental issues. Following this, new government
regulations emerged, and suddenly, “being green” seemed to promise
economic benefits, customer loyalty, and the attraction of consumers
who sought to make healthy decisions and reduce their impact on the
planet (Jenkins and Kähler, 2020).
In line with this evolution of green marketing, the last years have also
witnessed new forms of consumption such as sustainable consumption,
eco-friendly consumption, and green purchasing behavior (Brough
et al., 2016). However, although green marketing may shift consumers’
behavior toward a particular brand (Peattie and Crane, 2005), it is
known that because consumers have access to information about the
environmental features of the products they purchase, their inclination
to acquire green products can either increase or decrease, depending on
how these consumers rely on companies’ actions toward the
environment.
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Journal of Cleaner Production 363 (2022) 132509
A fundamental element in green marketing is eco-labels. They pro­
vide relevant information about companies’ products and corporate
engagement (Sammer and Wüstenhagen, 2006), as well as to commu­
nicate ecological innovations incorporated into the product itself
(Prieto-Sandoval et al., 2016). On the supply side, this perspective has
been recently complemented with quantitative approaches that aim to
find optimal diffusion strategies for eco-innovations using inter-firm
networks (Ramkumar et al., 2022). Other strategies identified as suc­
cessful in creating consumer trust in green products are green adver­
tising (Juwaheer et al., 2012) and green initiatives (Tong and Su, 2018).
According to Brécard (2014), eco-labelling is the most suitable promo­
tional technique for promoting green products, given that it allows the
company to inform the consumer about the environmental quality of its
goods, processes, and product components.
In recent years, the differences between conventional and green
marketing have become clearer. Ottman (2011) summarizes them in
terms of four key elements: consumers, products, marketing and
communication, and corporate performance. In green marketing, con­
sumers are no longer perceived as an external audience but rather they
are considered part of a unified community where everyone represents a
life of joys and challenges. In this sense, Dangelico and Vocalelli (2017)
indicate that companies must integrate their environmental sustain­
ability perspective into their marketing strategy to define their target
markets. Then, products should be designed in a cradle-to-cradle
fashion, and their production processes should aim to mitigate their
negative impact on the environment (Ottman, 2011). This approach
constitutes a fundamental part of the differentiation strategy in the
market (Dangelico and Vocalelli, 2017). Ottman (2011) also highlights
that green marketing fosters consumer awareness through the commu­
nication of socio-ecological values, word-of-mouth campaigns, and
disseminating information regarding quality performance. Finally,
companies with a green marketing strategy are not secretive. They have
a transparent, collaborative corporate performance, are committed to
sustainability, and treat their stakeholders like allies. This type of
transparent corporate communication and collaborative performance,
based on community trust, may directly lead to success in the brand
positioning strategy (Dangelico and Vocalelli, 2017).
In relation to sustainability-oriented courses, it is evident that results
can tell whether potential efforts of marketing and communication of
green strategizing may influence motivations toward adopting sustain­
able behaviors. However, effects on actual behavior can be only hy­
pothesized and tested in contexts where the outcome of the application
of a specific strategy can be measured (e.g., Jaiswal et al., 2021). Our
research, as shown in the next sections, explores such motivational
effects.
3. Data and methods
3.1. Data collection
The study explores the practices and motivations under which stu­
dents perceive themselves as green consumers, based on a sample of 210
students distributed in the following way: 90.48% from the 16- to 25-
year-old range; 5.71% from 26 to 35; and the remaining 3.81% being
at least 36 years old. The student population belongs to three univer­
sities in Cundinamarca, Colombia. The students voluntarily enrolled in
non-compulsory courses on topics dealing with sustainability and the
circular economy, between 2018 and 2021. The data was collected
through a survey managed online via Google Forms before and after
taking the course. We used the questionnaire designed by Jaca et al.
(2018), which consisted of 23 questions. Participants were asked to
respond to the questions using a Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (“I
never take it into account”) to 7 (“I always take it into account”). Two
other Likert-type questions were added to test, as well as questions about
demographics (salary range, hobbies, town of residence, and educa­
tional background) The two added Likert-type questions aimed to test
V. Prieto-Sandoval et al.
the participants’ perception of themselves as responsible consumers and
to gather information about their purchasing frequency of sustainable
products from categories such as fish, coffee, paper, among others. The
full survey can be found in Annex 1.
Students were asked to answer the first (“before”) questionnaire at
the beginning of the course and allowed to send back the second
(“after”) questionnaire between 3 and 12 months after the course ended.
During the course, all students received training in sustainable devel­
opment, the circular economy, sustainable consumption, green prod­
ucts, and eco-labels. Students’ survey data analyzed in the study was
stored in a confidential database, accessed only by the researchers.
Students voluntarily enrolled in the courses; they also completed the
questionnaire on a voluntary basis and did not receive any extra in­
centives (e.g., grade points or money) for doing so.
3.2. Statistical analysis
We first explored the data collected and obtained key descriptive
indicators. Then we investigated significant changes in participants’
attitudes by comparing the before and after scenarios.
The responses per item are ordinal data. It is not surprising that there
has long been debate on the interpretation of mean and standard devi­
ation in ordinal data although practical experience supports their use
(Harpe, 2015; Jaca et al., 2018). In our case, we have opted for reporting
the median value (most repeated answer per item) and a measure of
ordinal dispersion (consensus). Consensus Cns(X) is measured according
to Tastle and Wierman (2007):
∑n (
|Xi − μx |
) quality is lower” (item 11 on “Labelling and peer pressure” dimension).
Cns(X) = 1 + pi log2 1 − (1)
dx
i=1
The term Xi is the i-th rating category, μx represents the average item
rating response, dx corresponds to the difference between the maximum
and minimum rating categories (e.g., 7-1 = 6), and pi is the percentage of
respondents within the i-th category. The consensus measure gives a
value between 0 and 1; a value of 0 indicates polarizing opinions (e.g.,
half of the group strongly disagrees, and the other half strongly agrees
upon a topic), whereas a value of 1 indicates that the whole group of
respondents agrees on a single rating value in each item.
Following Jaca et al. (2018), we computed a correlation matrix
among dimensions. Scores per dimension were averaged out from the
question set for each of the six dimensions. There has always been
controversy over the use of parametric techniques on ordinal data (e.g.,
Jaca et al., 2018). We have backed up our decisions with previous
research supporting the use of aggregate rating scales as continuum data
(Harpe, 2015) and the inspection of relevant differences in terms of
statistical power between non-parametric and parametric techniques on
ordinal data under certain conditions (de Winter and Dodou, 2010). For
the before-and-after comparison, we also used average rating values for
each dimension.
To compare survey responses before and after the course, we
employed paired t-tests. An alternative might have been to consider a
research design with a control group. Control groups are appropriate
when there is the possibility to establish two different populations that
differ in the application of a treatment. Therefore, in the empirical
design of a two-group comparison, randomization is an important factor
to guarantee an appropriate comparison setting. Such a setting is very
common in many medical trials but sometimes it cannot be imple­
mented. For instance, when a researcher wants to inspect the effect of a
sustainability training program in a company, all workers are either
trained or not, so comparisons are carried out considering employees’
performance in before and after scenarios. In addition, because our
sample is characterized by students who voluntarily enrolled in the
course, the randomization of individuals assigned to a control group was
not considered. In such cases, a paired t-test is a suitable strategy
(Hedberg and Ayers, 2015; Maffei et al., 2018; Moses, 2006; Rosner,
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Journal of Cleaner Production 363 (2022) 132509
1982). Paired t-tests use matched-paired samples, meaning data from
different pairs are assumed to be independent but correlated within each
pair (a paired data point is an individual “before” and the same indi­
vidual “after”). In our sample, we ensured we had paired data points by
inspecting names and IDs of all participants.
The study also compared the “before” and “after” scenarios for men
and women separately across all dimension scores. For each dimension,
we computed a t-test for the two-group mean comparison. The study did
not assume variance homogeneity, so we used the Welch test (the con­
servative strategy). Normality checks were not necessary since sample
means tend to exhibit a normal distribution as sample sizes grow. In total,
119 women and 91 men took part in the study, for a total of 210
participants.
4. Results and discussion
4.1. Descriptive statistics
Table 1 shows the median and consensus values per response item.
All median values either increased or remain unchanged, implying that
the most typical responses per item were placed in higher response
categories in the after scenario. This in principle suggests that courses in
sustainability and circular economy may increase participants’ moti­
vations toward greener consumption. Similar conclusions can be drawn
from the inspection of consensus values, except for three items: “I started
to pay more attention to my health” (item 7 on “Health issues” dimen­
sion), “I started following a vegetarian diet” (item 8 on “Health issues”
dimension), and “I started to buy sustainable products, even if their
For item 7 the consensus score decreased from 0.72 to 0.68; for item 8
from 0.58 to 0.52, and for item 11 from 0.60 to 0.58. In two of these
cases the median response increased in one category, also implying an
increase in response polarization: a good number of students stuck to
their pre-course answer, while the rest increased their rating scores. In
general, the “Health issues” dimension was the only one that did not
reveal increases in consensus values in any of its items, possibly because
young people are less concerned about health problems than older
adults are. However, it is interesting to see that the “Health issues”
median responses increased for two of the three items.
In the after scenario, the highest consensus values were item 4 (“I
have become aware of the humans’ impact on pollution and destruction
of nature”) and item 23 (“I was taught about the 3Rs (Reduce, Reuse and
Recycle"), with scores of 0.78 and 0.81, respectively. This indicates that
awareness of human responsibility and strategies leading to habit
change were acknowledged as key learnings from the courses.
All students were also asked about whether they consider themselves
responsible consumers and how often they purchase sustainable (green)
products. Responses were recorded according to a 7-point Likert scale,
where 1 is “I fully disagree,” and 7 is “I fully agree”. These additional
questions were meant to capture students’ self-perception as consumers;
we asked about the frequency of their sustainable purchases as a
confirmation question (Table 2). A descriptive analysis of these re­
sponses shows no apparent differences between men and women, as
seen below (Table 2), but it does reveal an apparent increase in the
median response on the self-assessment of responsible consumption.
To inspect associations across dimensions, we computed the corre­
sponding correlation values. We found positive and significant values for
all pairwise relations (p < 0.01) for both the “before” (Table 3) and the
“after” (Table 4) scenarios. We compared our results with those of de
Carvalho et al. (2015) and Jaca et al. (2018). The former study was carried
out in Europe, whereas the latter was conducted in Latin America. The
current study focused on young Colombian students from private uni­
versities. The positive correlations confirm that the six dimensions
consistently respond to those aiming to gauge responsible consumption in
populations other than the ones studied by de Carvalho et al. (2015) and
Jaca et al. (2018). With this, our analysis suggests that university courses
V. Prieto-Sandoval et al. Journal of Cleaner Production 363 (2022) 132509

Table 1
Descriptive statistics from 210 survey participants. Based on Jaca et al. (2018)
Dimension Description Before After

Median Consensus Median Consensus

Question: "Please rate, from 1 to 7, the motivations that have made you buy ecological, sustainable or "green" products"
1 (AI) Access to Information I saw a documentary or shocking information that led me to be more careful about what I 5 0.57 6 0.65
buy
2 I saw information on the internet that led me to change my consumption patterns 5 0.58 5 0.59
3 I take into account the value of environmental and social certificates 4 0.58 5 0.64
4 I have become aware of the humans’ impact on pollution and destruction of nature 6 0.71 7 0.78
5 (CS) Crisis Scenario Economic difficulties made me think about what I really need to buy 4 0.53 4 0.54
6 I prefer local products because I contribute to the country’s economy 5 0.63 6 0.69
7 (HI) Health Issues My health or welfare 5 0.72 6 0.68
8 I started following a vegetarian diet 1 0.58 1 0.52
9 I began to consume more fruits and vegetables 5 0.62 6 0.62
10 (LPP) Labelling and Peer Environmental product labels are coherent with my personal values 5 0.62 5 0.67
11 Presure I started to buy sustainable products, even if their quality is lower 3 0.60 4 0.58
12 I began to be interested in information on product labels (eco-labels) 5 0.60 6 0.68
13 I am trying "sustainable" products/practices that people close to me recommended 5 0.63 6 0.68
14 (SR) Sense of Retribution I stopped buying products tested on animals 4 0.49 5 0.50
15 I prefer to buy products in recyclable or reusable packaging 6 0.66 6 0.74
16 I have purchased "fair trade" products to help small communities to have better working 5 0.57 5 0.64
conditions
17 It’s my way of contributing something to society 5 0.65 6 0.71
18 I select "fair trade" products because it helps us to have a better world 4 0.57 5 0.68
19 I prefer organic products because they are of superior quality 5 0.58 5 0.69
20 (CE) Circular Economy I realized that some products packaging can pollute the planet 6 0.70 6 0.76
21 I realized that some products that I used to consume include toxic components 5 0.53 5 0.61
22 I realized that some products generate waste that is harmful to nature (plantations, 5 0.67 6 0.76
fabrications)
23 I was taught about the 3Rs (Reduce, Reuse and Recycle) 6 0.61 7 0.81

Table 2 Table 4
Students’ perception about their own sustainable behavior. 7-point Likert scale. “After” correlation matrix. All values are significant at the p < 0.01 level (2-
tailed).
Gender Do you consider yourself a How often do you
responsible consumer? purchase sustainable Dimension AI CS HI LPP SR CE
(Median) products?
Access to Information AI 1 0.38 0.23 0.63 0.47 0.54
(Also named “green” Crisis Scenario CS 0.38 1 0.23 0.45 0.40 0.31
products)? (Median) Health Issues HI 0.23 0.23 1 0.35 0.33 0.34
Labeling and Peer LPP 0.63 0.45 0.35 1 0.62 0.55
Before Female 4 4
Pressure
Male 5 4
Sense of Retribution SR 0.47 0.40 0.33 0.62 1 0.58
Total 4 4
Circular Economy CE 0.54 0.31 0.34 0.55 0.58 1
Median
After Female 5 4
Male 5 4
Total 5 4 found between “Sense of retribution” and “Labelling and peer pressure”
Median (0.671); “Circular economy” and “Sense of retribution” (0.652), and
“Labelling and peer pressure” and “Access to information” (0.636); in
contrast, the lowest values were found between “Health issues” and
Table 3 “Access to information” (0.295), and “Health issues” and “Crisis sce­
“Before” correlation matrix. All values are significant at the p < 0.01 level (2- nario” (0.231).
tailed). In the “after course” scenario, the highest correlation values were
Dimension AI CS HI LPP SR CE
found between “Labelling and peer pressure” and “Access to informa­
tion” (0.630), and “Sense of retribution” and “Labelling and peer pres­
Access to Information AI 1 0.33 0.30 0.64 0.58 0.55
sure” (0.623); the lowest values were found between “Health issues” and
Crisis Scenario CS 0.33 1 0.23 0.35 0.42 0.38
Health Issues HI 0.30 0.23 1 0.40 0.45 0.31 “Access to information” (0.234), and “Health issues” and “Crisis sce­
Labeling and Peer LPP 0.64 0.35 0.40 1 0.67 0.56 nario” (0.231).
Pressure
Sense of Retribution SR 0.58 0.42 0.45 0.67 1 0.65
4.2. “Before” and “after” scenario comparison
Circular Economy CE 0.55 0.38 0.31 0.56 0.65 1

Using paired t-tests, we compared the “before” and “after” scenarios

and companies’ training programs should include content to increase
environmental awareness and responsible consumption.
In general, the correlations are weaker after the course, which means
that the knowledge and skill acquired through instruction might
generate higher discernment criteria among dimensions. Also, the sus­
tainability content in the courses may have shaped more independent
opinions and provided more informed arguments for green behavior.
In the “before course” scenario, the highest correlation values were
per dimension. We found significant differences across all dimensions
(either with p < 0.05 or p < 0.01), meaning that the null hypothesis is
rejected and a non-zero true mean difference between the before and
after scenarios is supported. This suggests that the course did have an
impact on students’ perceptions on sustainability. A summary of results
is presented in Table 5.
We also inspected all confidence intervals (C.I.) at 95%. LPP regis­
tered the largest change with a C.I. equal to [− 0.86, − 0.53] and a mean
difference of − 0.70, which means that the before vs. after difference was

5
V. Prieto-Sandoval et al.
Table 5
“Before” vs. “after” t-test values across the six dimensions.
Dimension Paired t-test value
Access to Information - AI − 7.03**
Crisis Scenarios - CS − 2.56*
Health Issues - HI − 4.29**
Labelling and Peer Pressure -LPP − 8.13**
Sense of Retribution - SR − 7.60**
Circular Economy - CE 7.98**
−
*p < 0.05, **p < 0.01.
Alternative hypothesis: true difference in means is not equal to 0.
found between 0.53 and 0.86 points with a confidence of 95%—and a
mean increase of 0.70 points. LPP was followed by AI (C.I. = [− 0.78,
− 0.44], mean difference = − 0.61) and CE (C.I. = [− 0.74, − 0.45], mean
difference = − 0.60]. The dimension with the least change was HI (C.I. =
[− 0.34, − 0.12], mean difference = − 0.23].
4.3. Income distribution and differences by gender
Fig. 1 summarizes the income distribution by gender, according to
the data reported by the students. In general, the percentage with the
lowest income are women. Our data shows that men have the percentage
with the highest income. This aspect is highly relevant since, according
to various studies, products recognized as “green” or sustainable tend to
have a premium price of 5%–10% higher than traditional products
(Aguilar and Cai, 2010; Loureiro and Lotade, 2005); responsible con­
sumers with a high income may be willing to pay premium prices
relative to conventional products.
Nonetheless, the willingness to pay such premium prices is offset if
these sustainable products perform worse than conventional or rema­
nufactured ones or are built from recycled materials (Dangelico and
Vocalelli, 2017; Michaud and Llerena, 2011). People with more money
(presumably more men than women) can more easily afford the pre­
mium on green products and are willing to pay if they are new and
perform as well as or better than conventional products; people at lower
income levels still may prefer green products, but affordance can hinge
upon the existence of discounted green purchasing models. This is
consistent with Witter et al. (2021), who did not find strong positive
correlations between income and preferences for ‘alternative’ seafood.
Thus, in several product categories, there are sustainable products at
discount prices—such as refurbished products—where extended war­
ranties and money-back guarantees are usually offered to compensate
for quality differentials (Wallner et al., 2022).
4.4. Survey gender differences
We compared the “before” and “after” scenarios separately for men
and women across all dimension scores. For each dimension, we
Fig. 1. Monthly income by gender.
6
Journal of Cleaner Production 363 (2022) 132509
computed a t-test for the two-group mean comparison. We concluded
that there is no significant gender-based mean difference; yet the SR
(before) and the HI (after) dimensions revealed weakly significant dif­
ferences (see Table 6). In both, women appeared to have a slightly
higher perception of sustainability. See Figs. 2 and 3.
Several works have explored whether women (Witek, 2020) behave
more sustainably (Kassinis et al., 2016; Laroche et al., 2001; Meinzen-­
Dick et al., 2014; Witek, 2020)). We found no effects. This reveals that at
least in young populations, gender-based policies and campaigns that
have considered differentiating strategies might be revised to foster
sustainable consumption effectively.
4.5. Potential opportunities for green marketing innovation
Analysis of the students’ motivations revealed four key recommen­
dations into assertive communication to young consumers. Firms should
1) engage in green education, 2) create community, and 3) be aware of
consumer diversity; also, they should 4) not differentiate by gender.
First, the results of this study suggest that young people adopt greener
behaviors when properly trained in sustainability and circular economy
concepts. In this sense, green marketing strategies would have to start
off with clear and compelling educational messages that convey the key
attributes of sustainable products and services for the sake of aligning
them with individual-level motivations. In addition, using green mar­
keting strategies to educate young people can reduce barriers like the
lack of environmental knowledge and reduce the gap between young
consumers’ attitudes towards green products and their actual purchase
behavior (Sharma, 2021).
Second, the results showing the strong positive change and
consensus observed in the Labelling and Peer Pressure (LLP) dimension
in the before-after comparison indicate that firms can create a commu­
nity through which to introduce sustainable products and services. LPP
is important because it represents how much consumers are influenced
by their environment and the people and products that align with their
values. The apparent inclination of young people to buy locally and to
consume responsibly is key to forge a sense of community among them.
Sustainable communities can be made up of family members, acquain­
tances, or friends who want to adopt more sustainable habits and are
willing to receive advice to try green products (Table 1, items 10 to 13).
In turn, this insight is consistent with Ivanova et al.’s (2019) results,
which indicate that marketers should consider marketing campaigns
that emphasize products that express genuine social and community
values to increase the personal involvement of consumers over genera­
tions. Moreover, this involvement between consumers and products may
improve the sustainable brand position in the market. Along this line,
the sense of belonging to a greener community is also considered by
Cespedes-Dominguez et al. (2021) who explain that celebrities or
influencers with a sustainable lifestyle can be an ideal green marketing
element to communicate brand values to segments or communities of
Table 6
Welch two-sample t-test value “Before” and “After.”
Dimension Welch two-sample t-test Welch two-sample t-test
value (Before the course) value (After the course)
Access to Information − 0.18 − 0.72
- AI
Crisis Scenarios - CS − 0.56 0.37
Health Issues - HI − 1.62 − 2.04*
Labelling and Peer − 0.89 0.07
Pressure - LPP
Sense of Retribution - − 2.15* − 1.09
SR
Circular Economy - CE − 1.06 − 1.03
*p < 0.05.
Alternative hypothesis: true difference in means is not equal to 0.
Conclusion: There are no significant gender differences before and after.
V. Prieto-Sandoval et al.
Fig. 2. Boxplot differences in the SR dimension (“Before” scenario).
Fig. 3. Boxplot differences in the HI dimension (“After” scenario).
green consumers. The existing literature illustrates (e.g., Ismail et al.,
2014) that communities are a powerful force to increase engagement,
access to information, and collaboration between consumers and
brands. Communities of consumers who share sustainable values also
become a distribution channel for relatives’ entrepreneurs and street
markets, as an alternative to supermarket or specialized stores (Pagliacci
et al., 2019).
Third, according to the correlation results, Table 1 suggests that
sustainable consumers do not come out of the same mold. Young con­
sumers motivated to be greener are diverse and have interests that are
not necessarily related. Along this line, our study shows that consumers
motivated by crisis scenarios do not necessarily share a great concern for
their health or physical activity (Table 1). Recognizing such diversity
within a cradle-to-cradle strategy could play a broader role in green
marketing to promote innovation via the channels of communication
favored by young consumers and improve their experience with sus­
tainable products and services. In this sense, this study presents an
important contribution to the targeting strategies, considering that
sustainable product companies must celebrate consumers’ diversity and
study it to define the archetypes of sustainable consumers that apply to
their sector or industry. As Rex et al. (2007) explain, green marketing
must learn from conventional marketing, so available tools such as
buyer personas and user journey maps can be applied to develop these
processes.
Fourth, regarding the statistical results, there are no significant
7
Journal of Cleaner Production 363 (2022) 132509
gender-based mean differences across the six dimensions. Thus, it would
make sense to recommend to firms/marketers to target young con­
sumers without thinking about gender differences. This contrasts with
other studies, such as a food-related lifestyle segmentation study that
identified married women with children as the most sustainability-
oriented consumers (Thøgersen, 2017). Possibly this happens because,
at mature ages, women tend to assume household responsibilities such
as food shopping, and they are more critical about products’ quality and
sustainability performance, even in countries recognized as having a
high gender balance (Poppe and Kjærnes, 2003) Although the popula­
tion we studied is not comparable to Thøgersen’s, his study suggests that
future research could investigate whether young people’s motivation for
consuming responsibly shifts differently along gender lines in response
to green marketing strategies as they mature.
As any study, this one also has limitations; therefore, results need to
be considered carefully in the context of the study. The major limitation
of this study is that nothing can be inferred about actual sustainable
behavior. Testing effects on motivational aspects does not imply habit
change. Also, the study does not tell to what extent the motivational
effect can survive time decay and eventually disappears.
Another limitation is related to the study sample, since it was con­
structed only with students that voluntary chose to take the non-
compulsory university courses linked to sustainability and the circular
economy (SCE). A reasonable approach to overcome this limitation in
the future could be by inviting students enrolled in mandatory courses so
as we can compare impacts on individuals’ motivations toward the
consumption of sustainable products. It is worth mentioning that sus­
tainability courses are not currently mandatory in the analyzed context,
but this trend may change in the coming years.
A third limitation is connected to the instruction that students
receive, since it can be biased by a variety of factors such as the
particular way concepts are taught according to the course level (un­
dergraduate or postgraduate), teachers’ motivations and their commit­
ment, and the type of university (public or private). Therefore, follow-up
studies are needed to investigate how these contextual factors affect
students’ behavior. Likewise, in the future, it would be advisable to
develop more sophisticated research designs with larger populations
and under varied sociocultural environments.
Finally, habit adoption must be understood in the light of both
psychological theories and social influence (see Holtz, 2014). Our study
does not address socially constructed outcomes and therefore does not
consider the importance of individual-level interactions in shaping
behavior. Such factors need to be investigated with different tools and
models. Understanding the mutual effect between the individual and
society is key to develop effective green marketing strategies.
5. Conclusions
The main goal of the current study was to determine whether there
were significant changes in young consumers’ motivations to engage in
sustainable consumption across six motivational dimensions after their
voluntary enrollment in a non-compulsory course related to sustainability
and circular economy. A survey given to students at private universities in
Colombia prior to beginning and upon completing the course was used to
not only measure changes in motivation but also identify the underlying
motivations that might reveal opportunities for innovations in green
marketing strategies that may appeal to this segment.
First, the results revealed a consistent correlational pattern with
other studies and other populations across the six motivational di­
mensions; they showed that the course impacted students’ motivations
across the six dimensions of interest. Therefore, the study provides new
information about young students’ attitudes towards sustainable con­
sumption when they participate in non-compulsory courses and receive
instruction about sustainability and circular economy topics.
Similarly, the study measured the consistency of students’ self-
perception of sustainable behavior across various practices and how
V. Prieto-Sandoval et al.
the degree of consistency varied after the students had been exposed to
the concepts of sustainability as delivered in the course. Like Jaca et al.’s
(2018) results, we found that all correlations across the six motivational
dimensions (access to information, crisis scenario, health issues, label­
ling and peer pressure, sense of retribution, and circular economy)
before and after enrollment in sustainability-related courses are positive
and significant, which means that the way people relate dimensions does
not drastically change before and after the courses. However, the study
also showed that students discern better among dimensions when they
have more information, so correlations tend to be lower in the after
scenarios. Likewise, this study reveals a significant increase in rating
scores based on ecological behaviors and consequently a greater
awareness of sustainable products after the course.
With respect to challenges for green marketing innovation, this
research illustrates four key recommendations on green marketing
communication for young consumers based on the six motivational di­
mensions: We recommend firms to develop strategies to 1) engage in
green education, 2) create community, 3) be aware of consumer di­
versity, whereas they should 4) not differentiate by gender. First, green
education must be emphasized to make consumers aware of how their
decisions affect the environment and society. Second, community cre­
ation by firms represents an important opportunity to communicate and
create user experience. Third, sustainable consumers are diverse, so
brands have the challenge of identifying the specific consumer arche­
types for their product; one does not fit all. Last, in terms of gender
considerations, green marketing strategies for young consumers should
not consider differences between men and women.
Taken together, these results suggest that universities and those
responsible for educational program design, such as deans and program
directors, should not undervalue the impact of sustainability instruction
as a path to motivate young consumers to make more sustainable
decisions.
For future research, it would be important to assess longer term ef­
fects on the awareness of sustainability concepts, and how effectively
they are translated into specific habits.
Funding sources
Project “Desafíos y oportunidades de la implementación de la
Economía Circular en las empresas” sponsored by Pontificia Universidad
Javeriana ID00009299. This research did not receive any other specific
grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit
sectors.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Vanessa Prieto-Sandoval: Conceptualization, Methodology, Vali­
dation, Investigation, Formal analysis, Data curation, Writing – original
draft, Writing – review & editing, Visualization. Luz Elba Torres-Gue­
vara: Conceptualization, Methodology, Validation, Investigation,
Formal analysis, Data curation, Writing – original draft, Writing – re­
view & editing, Visualization. César García-Díaz: Methodology, Formal
analysis, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing,
Visualization.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
The authors are grateful to the Project “Desafíos y oportunidades de
la implementación de la Economía Circular en las empresas” sponsored
by Pontificia Universidad Javeriana ID00009299. The authors are
8
Journal of Cleaner Production 363 (2022) 132509
grateful for the support received to develop this study from the research
group “Business, Economy and Finance” from the International School
of Economic and Administrative Sciences at Universidad de La Sabana in
Chia, Colombia. The authors also thank the students who participated in
this study.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.
org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2022.132509.
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