by
Mrs. P.Princy Susan Selvakumari & Dr. Kannan
Assistant Professor, Department of Business Administration, C.T.T.E College for Women, Chennai
St.Mary’s School of Management Studies, Rajiv Gandhi Road ,Chennai
Abstract
“Nothing
is more difficult and therefore precious than be able to decide” is quoted to
be the words of Napoleon. The most serious problems the world is facing today
is the deterioration of the natural resources. Grunet [1993] reported that 40%
of the environmental degradation has been brought about by the consumption
activity of private households. Now there is need to reverse this trend and
bring making them environment friendly. The attitudinal change will produce
environmentally conscious citizens. It means that in no circumstances shall we
go against the nature. The say walk if you want to use bike, use bike if you
want to use car…. The list is endless and one has to find one’s own methods to
change the environment friendly. It is very clear if we make the earth green
our lives will be green. The objective of the study is to understand the
attitude of the customers towards eco-friendly products and also to know about the
impact that eco-friendly products have created on the society. The season for
which business firms should go for green marketing include competitive
advantage, corporate social responsibilities, pressure from the government,
pressure from the competitors and issue relate cost of profit.
Introduction
Over the
last decade concern for the environmental issues has been increasing due to
increased media exposure, greater awareness of environmental pollutions, the
impact of major industry disasters and the rise of activist groups on the
environment (kulafatis, et al. 1999). Rapidly changing environment is now a
major concern for the people throughout world, making them more and more
concerned about the environment.
The
concern for environmental degradation has resulted in a new segment of
consumers i.e. the eco-friendly consumers. These consumers has been identified
as one who avoids products which are possible danger for health, damage the
environment during production, use materials derived from threatened species on environment and cause unnecessary
wastes. This resulted in increase in consumer concern with regard to
restoration of ecological balance by presenting demands for eco-friendly
products in countries around the world. Eco-friendly is the buzz world gaining
popularity in the contemporary generation. In the last decade, consumers have
become more enlightened on environmental issues.
In the
present scenario, challenges to keep the customers as well as consumers in fold
and even keep our natural environment safe which is the biggest need of the
time. The originally grown products, recyclable, reusable products,
biodegradable products, products having natural ingredients, products having
eco-friendly packaging are termed as green products which are also known as
eco-friendly products. An eco-friendly product is still at its infancy stage to
the customers. Rapid increase of awareness about environment has created
conscious customers ready to pay more to keep a cleaner and greener
environment. The challenges for eco-friendly products are higher cost,
non-cooperation, creating awareness among the customer’s promotions on eco-mark
or eco-labeling and motivate manufactures by green product awards.
Keywords:
Eco-friendly, eco-labeling, ecological balance, Environmental issues.
Objectives
§ To
analyse attitude of the consumers, towards eco-friendly products.
§ To
investigate the consumer attractiveness towards green products.
§ To
study about the demand for the eco-friendly products
§ To
evaluate consumer attitude and perception regarding green products under five
value added areas such as product, price, place promotion and package.
Review
of Literature
Green
marketing came into prominence in the late 1980s and early 1990s .The American
Marketing Association held the first workshop on “Ecological Marketing” in
1975.The proceeding of this workshop resulted in one of the first book on green
marketing entitled “Ecological Marketing”.(Henion and Kinneat 19765)Since that
time a number of other books on the
topic have been published(Coddington 1993,and Ottman 1993).Green products is
known as an ecological product or environmental friendly products. Shamdasami
et al,(1993) defined green products as the product that will not pollute the
earth or deplore natural resources ,and can be recycled or conserved. It is a
product that has more environmentally sound content or packaging in reducing
the environmental impact (Elkington and Mokower, 1988;Wasik,1996).
Despite
the increasing eco-awareness in contemporary market economies, it is generally
recognized that there are still considerable barriers to the diffusion of more
ecologically oriented consumption styles .In lay discourse as well as in much
of consumer research, these barriers are usually attributed to the motivational
and practical complexity of green consumption (Hackett, 2000)
Consumer attitude
toward environmentally sustainability ,also known as environmental or “green”
attitude, is a function of individuals ‘beliefs, feelings, and behaviors
related to environment issues(Schultzetal.2004:MilfontandDukitt2004,2010).Soonthoraisami,(2007)found
that consumers who were increasingly aware and concerned about the essentials
of environmental issues where known as green consumers. Chris (2008) showed
that consumers were beginning to have a more sustainable life, become more
environments friendly.
Research
Methodology
The method used is descriptive where in structured
questionnaire were used to collect the datas from the consumer .The consumers
have been selected by adopting random sampling method .The questions are
measured by using Likert’s five point scale. The data and information have been
collected to accomplish the objectives of the present study.
Hypothesis
Hypothesis 1: There is a significant difference
between demographic profile of the respondent and attitude of consumers towards
eco-friendly products.
Hypothesis 2: There is a significant difference
between demographic profile of the respondents and buying tendency of
consumers.
Hypothesis 3: There is no significant relationship
between the demand for the ecofriendly product with the increase in income.
Findings
&Analysis
Table-1
S.NO
|
Variable
|
Frequency
|
%
|
|
1
|
Age
|
18-25
|
51
|
51.00
|
26-35
|
19
|
19.00
|
||
36-45
|
18
|
18.00
|
||
>45
|
12
|
12.00
|
||
2
|
Gender
|
Male
|
60
|
60.00
|
Female
|
40
|
40.00
|
||
3
|
Education
|
High school
|
10
|
10.00
|
Graduate
|
10
|
10.00
|
||
Post Graduate
|
30
|
30.00
|
||
Professional
|
40
|
40.00
|
||
Doctorate
|
10
|
10.00
|
||
4
|
Income(p.m)
|
5000-15000
|
20
|
20.00
|
16000-25000
|
40
|
40.00
|
||
26000-35000
|
30
|
30.00
|
||
>35000
|
10
|
10.00
|
||
As mentioned in the above table, the characteristics
of the sample vary across age, gender, education and income. The finding also
suggests that out of these respondents, almost 65% have purchased eco-friendly
products.
Data
Analysis
Chi-square statistics (test of independence) has
been used to understand if there is any dependence among the demographic
variables such as age, income, gender, education and occupation and the awareness
about eco-friendly products. The attempt also has been made to understand if
there is any influence of the above said demographic variables on the respondent’s
consideration for eco-friendly products.
Table-2
Variable
|
Variable
|
p-value
|
Null
hypothesis Accepted/Rejected
|
Age
|
Attitude of consumer toward eco-friendly products
|
0.399
|
Accepted
|
Gender
|
0.207
|
Accepted
|
|
Occupation
|
0.364
|
Accepted
|
|
Education
|
0.529
|
Accepted
|
|
Income
|
0.645
|
Accepted
|
|
Age
|
Buying tendency of consumer
|
0.032
|
Rejected
|
Gender
|
0.855
|
Accepted
|
|
Occupation
|
0.047
|
Rejected
|
|
Education
|
0.000
|
Rejected
|
|
Income
|
0.197
|
Accepted
|
Since, chi-square statistics just helps in
identifying the dependence between the two categorical variables, in order to
understand and establish a definite relationship between the variables; we can
utilize binary logistic regression.
Binary Logistics Regression
Binary Logistics Regression has been applied where
the chi-square statistics showed some dependence between variables i.e.,
education and buying tendency of consumer. The result of an attempt to
formulate a model using BLR is not significant and the key regression
coefficient shows very poor model fit.
Table
– 3
Cox &
Snell R square
|
Nagelkerke R square
|
.019
|
.029
|
The
results signify there maybe some dependence between the level of education and
the consideration of energy efficient electronic products, but the relation
between these two is not strong enough to convert it into a meaningful model.
Frequency table for
source of information
Table -4
Source
|
Frequency
|
%
|
Television
|
40
|
40.00
|
Newspaper
|
30
|
30.00
|
Radio
|
10
|
10.00
|
Educational
Institutions
|
10
|
10.00
|
Government
Commercials
|
10
|
10.00
|
Total
|
100
|
100
|
From
the above table it can be analyzed that respondent’s source of information regarding
eco-friendly products are more from television and newspaper with 40.00% and
30.00% respectively. This may be so because many of the eco-friendly products
manufacturing companies are creating awareness among the consumers by providing
advertisements about their eco-friendly products on different medium of
information.
Table-5
Variable
|
p-value
|
Null hypothesis
Accepted/Rejected
|
Environmental concern &attitude towards eco-friendly products
|
0.000
|
Accepted
|
As
it can be seen from the above table that the null hypothesis has been accepted
which implies that there is no significant relationship between consumer’s
environmental concern and their attitude towards eco-friendly products.
Conclusion
The
research finding reveals that the consumers who are environmentally conscious
are more likely to purchase green products. The demographic variables such as
age, gender, occupation, education and income indicate that the awareness about
eco-friendly products is indifferent from the demographic variables. The major
sources of information regarding eco-friendly products are television and newspaper,
The companies have realized the growing need and demand of such products
therefore, they are investing heavily in creating such products and making
consumer purchase ecofriendly products.
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