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RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

1. To assess the awareness of consumers regarding green products

2. To analyze the attitude and behavior of Indian consumers towards

green products

3. To identify obstacles that respondents perceive to come in the way of

adopting green lifestyle

4. To segment consumers in Pune according to their green lifestyle and to

come up with five consumer segments:

• belonging to highly green group (True Blue Greens)

• belonging to moderately high green group (Green Backs)

• belonging to medium green group (Sprouts)

• belonging to low green group (Grousers)

• belonging to non green group (Basic Browns)

3.2 NEED OF THE STUDY: Many studies reveal that consumer concern

about the environment has steadily increased all over the world in the past two

decades. These studies are mainly carried out in highly developed countries

which are major contributors to environmental degradation. There is a need of

such a research in less affluent countries, as they also have registered their

names in the black list of polluters. As per Copenhagen Climate Talks on 5th

Dec. 2009148

, India is one of the world's biggest emitters of carbon dioxide - a

greenhouse gas blamed for global warming.

Although the consumer’s environmental concern is showing an increasing

trend in India, still it is highly questionable, that this environmental

sophistication will get translated into increased green purchasing or

conservation of energy. Moreover, all green activities cannot be put into the

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same basket, as these activities are the outcome of different ecological

philosophy.

The present study includes selection of a sample from one of the most polluting

city like Pune in India, establishes the relationship between the consumer

attitude and behavior and different demographic variables.

3.3 HYPOTHESIS FORMULATION:

The present study comprises a sample from one of the most polluting city

(Pune) in India. It tries to find out people’s interest about environment, when

‘green’ has become the buzzword. Pune being an economically well developed

city has emerged as an education hub in India. There is nothing wrong in

assuming that the city with considerably good literacy rate is well aware of the

environmental degradation and its repercussions to the human race. Thus the

hypothesis was formulated as:

H1: Environmental concern varies with age and income of respondents

H2: There is no relationship between consumer’s attitude and purchase

behavior of green products.

H3: There is no relationship between consumer’s attitude and

conservation behavior.

H4: Consumers of Pune city are well aware of green products.

The Sample Size Stratified random sampling was employed to select 500

respondents, from Pune city. The respondents were classified as under:

1. Students

2. Housewives

3. Professional

4. Business and trade , and

5. Services

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Pune’s sex-ratio among male and female is approximately established at

38:33. As the study is related to the educated youth, only graduates and post

graduates were taken into consideration.

A Survey method was employed and a structured questionnaire was developed

to measure demographic variables (age, gender, education etc.) attitudes and

purchasing & conservation behavior of the respondents. Both open ended and

close ended questions were employed for eliciting desired information from

respondents.

3.4 QUESTIONNAIRE DEVELOPMENT: A structured

questionnaire with four major sections (Refer Appendix A for questionnaire)

was developed. The first section comprised of General questions related to

demographics. To avoid any misrepresentation, the first question which was

about the name of respondent was made optional. The demographic variables

such as age, gender, education and occupation were included in this section.

In the second section, 4 Attitude questions were asked to understand the

respondents’ view about their own responsibility towards environment.

Respondents were asked whether they felt themselves capable of doing

something good to improve the state of environment or whether they felt that it

was the job of the government. The attitude of respondents about use of plastic

was also asked. With the increased concern towards the environment, many

companies are coming up with more and more goods with eco information, but

whether the consumers believe in such information is the last question

addressed in this section.

The third part of the questionnaire dealt with the behavioral information of the

respondents. In this section consumers were asked various questions about

their purchase and conservation behavior. The purchasing habits like products

with re-usable packaging, carrying own bags to supermarkets, reading labels

for environmental information about the product, using biodegradable soaps,

detergents etc. buying less polluting or recyclable products, were asked.

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Consumer’s willingness to pay a little more for eco friendly product was also

addressed in this section. Not only the products but even services are green like

use of e-mails instead of manual billing, are becoming popular now a days. To

acquire consumer behavior towards eco friendly services, a question was

posted at the end.

In the same section consumer’s conservation behavior was also checked,

respondents were asked to answer the questions about conservation of

resources like recycling bottles cans, consuming organic food, boycotting ivory

leather etc. avoiding non-veg. to save the ecology were included in this section.

The Fourth section of the questionnaire was devoted towards consumer’s

perception about adoption of green lifestyle, they were asked whether they see

eco friendly lifestyle to be very expensive or time consuming or they are just

ignorant about it. Respondents were also asked to answer the question “Are

they not adopting the green lifestyle because of lack of knowledge?”

At the end, an open ended question, inviting suggestions to improve the natural

environment was included for the better understanding of the subject.

The systematic approach to questionnaire development was as follows:

Independent Variables

The dependent variables employed in the analysis were all related to

individual’s demographics. 5 questions related to name, age, gender, income

level and occupation were asked. To avoid any kind of biasness, the first

question about name of the respondent was kept optional. Close ended options

were given to each question for convenience.

Dependent Variable

The environmental consciousness of the consumer was judged as a

combination of attitude, knowledge, behavior and perceived barriers in

adaptation of green lifestyle. Therefore measures encapsulating all four

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dimensions were included as independent variables using four point likert

scales which include:

1. A knowledge scale, measuring the respondent’s self perception of

knowledge on a total of 4 key environmental problems scored on a four

pointed category format (1=“know nothing about”, to 4= “know a great

deal about” )

2. An attitudinal scale consisting of 4 statements aimed at capturing the

respondent’s concern about the environmental protection at four point

Likert scale (1= “strongly disagree” to 4= “strongly agree”)

3. Purchasing and conserving habits about ecology was judged with

purchasing behavior scale. These two types of behaviors are also taken as

dependent variables on attitude as well. Responses to 11 purchasing

statements was measured on a 4 point frequency purchase scale (1=Never”,

4= always)

Similarly specific pro environmental conservation behavior was captured

with 8 statements each item was then measured on a 4 point frequency

purchase scale (1=Never”, 4= always)

4. Barriers to green lifestyle scale determining the consumer perception about

the barriers in the way of adopting eco friendly lifestyle, comprising of 4

statements of a four point Likert scale (1= “strongly disagree” to 4=

“strongly agree”)

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Approach to Questionnaire Development

Figure: 12 Questionnaire development chart

3.5 DATA COLLECTION AND RESPONSE

Stratified random sampling was employed to select 500 respondents, from the

Pune city. The work status strata was based on the basis of different groups like

students, housewives, professional business and, service. Considering Pune’s

Demographic Variables

(Independent) 5 statements related to

Name, age, gender, income and occupation

Knowledge Variables

(Dependent) 5statements

4 point scacle

1= Never, 4= always

Attitude Variables (Dependent)

4 statements

4 point scale

1= strongly disagree, 4= strongly agree

Purchase Behavior(Dependent)

11 statements

4 pont scale

1= never, 4= always

Conservation Behavior (Dependent)

8 statements

4 points scale

1= never, 4= always

Barriers to green lifestyle

(Dependent) 4 statements

4 points scale

1= strongly disagree, 4= strongly agree

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sex ratio Approx 38:33 the sample is taken tentatively. As the study was about

the educated people, only graduates and post graduated people were

considered.

The draft questionnaire was pilot tested with 50 selected consumers based on

the observations made by respondents in the pilot study; modifications were

made in the questionnaire. A revised questionnaire was personally

administered to a sample of 1000 out of total population of 3760636 (2001

census)70

respondents living in Pune, after repeated follow ups only 731

questionnaires could be received, out of which some questionnaires were

rejected on account of incompletion. Finally 500 completed questionnaires

were selected for the present study.

Though, the sample comprises people belonging to different socio

demographic groups, it is somewhat skewed towards more students and

salaried class persons.

3.6 ANALYSIS OF RESULTS: The data was first presented in tabular

and graphical form representing the different responses’ given by the

consumers. Then analysis was done in four stages as follows:

Stage I- Demographic profile of the respondents was tabulated in a self

explanatory manner. Percentage analyses were performed to find out exact

number of people giving response in similar manner. Demographic categories

of age and income level were then analyzed for each dependent variable

(knowledge, attitude, behavior, and lifestyle) to find out how people of one

demographic sub-category show their concern toward environment.

Stage II- As demographic variables are taken as independent, the dependency

of other variables on demography was checked with the help of one way

ANOVA (Analysis of Variance). ANOVA is a technique where the influence

of one factor on another factor is checked. The researcher employed ANOVA

for inspecting whether the responses of sample depend on demographic

variables or not. The results were in favor of demographics that mean the

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responses given by the sample population were outcome of sample belonging

to different age, and income level. In other words, people belonging to

different demographics show different concern about the environment.

Stage III- At this stage the data was segregated on the basis of responses given

to various questions about variables under consideration. Each question of

attitude was checked with all purchase behavior and conservation behavior

questions with the help of Chi square test. This is done to test whether there is

a potential relationship between attitude and behavior (Purchase and

conservation). Chi square test is a non-parametric test of statistical significance

for bivariate tabular analysis. Typically, chi-square test indicates whether or

not, two different samples are differed enough in some characteristic or aspect

and let us know the degree of confidence we can have in accepting or rejecting

the hypothesis.

Stage IV- With the help of percentage analysis the whole sample was then

divided into five major groups on the basis of their concern about the

environment. This was done as per Roper’s green gauge73

(1996) method.

Roper had divided the US Population into 5 groups on the basis of the attitude,

and behavior towards environmental, barriers to green living and

environmental knowledge.

The identity of all environmentalists cannot be recognized as common. It

depends upon their ways of conserving the ecology. The researcher divided the

total sample population into three sub-categories namely, animal lovers, health

fanatics, and planet passionate people. To do this, the percentage response

given to each category was taken into consideration.