While holistic international commitments such as Paris Agreement and European Green Deal are necessary to mitigate climate change consequences, country-level commitments depend on national political forces and public sentiment. Climate change is a heavily debated topic among politicians. With political parties communicating and acting differently regarding the climate change, it can be expected that consumers’ political ideology influences their climate change beliefs and pro-environmental behaviors. Individuals’ political ideology, including their visions and goals for social and political systems and their ideologies for how society should function, are shown to influence their consumption beliefs and behaviors. Against this background, the aim of this study is to investigate the link between individual’s political ideology, climate change beliefs/concerns and sustainable consumption. This is an important relationship to investigate because it can identify those segments in society which can be targeted for sustainable consumption and educated on matters related to climate change and responsible consumption. This line of inquiry can further emphasize the responsibility of political parties for influencing climate change beliefs among their supporters by effective communication.
This study aims to investigate the link between political ideology, and consumer intentions to reduce energy consumption. The mediating effect of climate change beliefs and moderating effect of political interest have also been investigated:
H1: Climate change beliefs and concern mediate the relationship between political orientation and sustainable consumption (i.e. buy sustainable products and boycott least energy efficient product).
H2: Political interest moderates the relationship between political orientation and climate change beliefs such that the relationship is stronger for consumers with higher levels of political interest.
Method: This study utilizes 34,788 responses from individuals in 23 European countries. conditional process modelling is conducted by SPSS PROCESS macro (Hayes, 2017) since it enables us to answer how and when (mediation and moderation) political ideology is going to effect the pro-environmental behavior, simultaneously in one analysis.
Results: Political orientation does not have a significant direct relationship to sustainable purchase, but it influences the purchase through beliefs and concern. Climate change beliefs and concern fully mediate the relationship between political orientation and sustainable purchase. Political orientation significantly and negatively correlates with sustainable boycotting both directly and indirectly through beliefs and concerns.
Political interest moderates the relationship between political orientation and climate change beliefs such that the relationship is the negative association is stronger among individuals with higher levels of interest in politics.
Research relates to several goals of the 2030 agenda for sustainable development including 7.2, 7.3, 12.1 and 12.2.
2021.
ISDRS2021 - the 27th Annual Conference, International Sustainable Development Research Society