Relationship between environmental knowledge, environmental attitude and sustainable consumption behaviour: a Malaysian viewpoint

Abstract

This paper attempts to examine the environmental knowledge and environmental attitudes of Malaysian consumers and to discover whether there is a pattern of sustainable consumption behaviour among this group of consumers. It aims to investigate the relationship between environmental knowledge and attitude, and the direct effects of these two variables on the sustainable consumption behaviour (SCB). The four principles of SCB were adopted from Janikowski (2000) which focused on the daily activities related to selection, minimization, maximization and segregation. The result indicated that the environmental knowledge of young Malaysian consumers was relatively low. However, low level of environmental knowledge does not mean that consumers are not concerned about the environment or not engaging in the sustainable consumption activities. Consumers also demonstrated both a moderate level of concern towards the environment and sustainable consumption behaviour. The result also shows positive and significant relationship between environment attitudes and behaviour. The study confirmed past research that attitude is an important predictor of consumption behaviour. The implications, limitations and suggestions for future research are also put forward.