Green marketing in grocery retail

: A study on consumer buying behavior regarding environmentally sustainable food products

Abstract

The earth is in destress as humans have exploited the earth of its natural resources causing climate change and natural disasters. The food industry is one of the main contributors to environmental destruction, therefore it has become even more important for consumers to act socially responsible. The purpose of this study was to explore whether consumers accept green marketing at face value when buying environmentally sustainable food products. The sub-purpose was to understand how consumers identify environmentally sustainable food products. The research question is: how does green marketing communication influence consumers buying behavior regarding environmentally sustainable food products? This study used green marketing, consumer buying behavior, and CnSR as the main theories to build a conceptual model. This was a qualitative study which used 10 semistructured interviews as empirical data then content and thematic analysis were used to analyze the empirical data. The study drew three conclusions, that price is still the deciding factor for consumers when choosing environmentally sustainable food products, that the individual-self factor is the foundation for the psychological factors behind consumers’ buying behavior, and that green marketing alone is not enough to influence consumers’ buying behavior towards being environmentally sustainable and socially responsible.

Date of Award	2022-Jun
Original language	English
Supervisor	Karin Alm (Supervisor) & Jens Hultman (Examiner)