EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Does a Paradoxical Frame Encourage Green Behavior in Consumers?

Francesco Testa, Natalia Marzia Gusmerotti, Vinicio Di Iorio and Marco Frey

Business Strategy and the Environment, 2025, vol. 34, issue 4, 4695-4716

Abstract: Green consumption presents a unique challenge: While it advocates for environmental protection through purchasing choices and consumption habits, it can also create a psychological tension by merging two long‐standing sociocultural opposites, namely, consumption and environmental stewardship. Leveraging the paradox theory, we investigate whether the ability to navigate such a tension predicts green consumption. Our framework underwent testing in two studies. Study 1 scrutinizes Italian respondents (n = 1029), while Study 2 replicates the framework on a larger scale across France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Poland (n = 5124), focusing on clothing. Both studies reveal that consumers capable of grappling with such a tension are more likely to engage in green consumption, including sharing and purchasing second‐hand, responsible use and disposal, and repairing. By introducing a new cognitive frame for green consumption that accommodates the plurality of goals and quantifying its impact, this research unveils the power of embracing tensions in consumption for the benefit of the planet.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1002/bse.4226

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:bstrat:v:34:y:2025:i:4:p:4695-4716

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://onlinelibrary ... 1002/(ISSN)1099-0836

Access Statistics for this article

Business Strategy and the Environment is currently edited by Richard Welford

More articles in Business Strategy and the Environment from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().

 
Page updated 2025-05-08
Handle: RePEc:bla:bstrat:v:34:y:2025:i:4:p:4695-4716