Behavioral Determinants of Sustainable Consumption and Financial Literacy among Urban Gen Z Consumers

Abstract

Green consumption is becoming an important way to address environmental problems and promote responsible consumer behavior. Generation z consumers, particularly those living in urban environments, are a lucrative group of consumers that already have an increasing influence on the trend in sustainable consumption. This research includes financial literacy (FL) as an additional variable to the model of the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) in order to examine behavioral factors in sustainable purchasing behavior among urban Generation Z consumers. A survey of four hundred Generation Z urban consumers was done, and the data that was collected was analyzed using descriptive statistics (DS), correlation analysis (CA), and regression analysis (RA). In addition, sustainability intention (SI) is significantly influenced by environmental attitudes (EA), perceived behavioral control (PBC), subjective norms (SN), and FL. Among these determinants, the EA are the most significant factors on SI (0.31), PBC (0.27), SN (0.24), and FL (0.21). The result also shows that SI (0.56) is a key determinant of sustainable consumption behavior (SCB). SI and SCB are explained by the regression models with 52 and 31 % variance, respectively. Focusing on the importance of behavioral and financial aspects to building the sustainable consumption patterns within the population of the consumers of Generation Z, the work provides insights into on the policies, educational models, and firms that intend to introduce environmentally-conscious consumption.