How does personality influence the behaviour of green consumer in the textile industry? - A quantitative study that investigates the relationship between the big five personality traits and the willingness to pay for sustainable apparel

Abstract

Sustainability has become a global and important issue, due to the environmental degradation of the last decades which includes global warming, rising seas, declining air quality, shrinking animal habitats, increasing droughts, and spreading of newly diseases.

Everyone - government, businesses, and individuals - have become increasingly aware of the need to reduce our environmental footprint. It should be a collective activity where all the intermediaries have opportunities to contribute towards sustainability. As a result, the consumer is considered the focal point in green market since the approval of sustainable products depend mostly on his decisions. He is the one who desires and aim at decreasing his own environmental footprint through of sustainable consumption and the sellers’ energies are focused on satisfying his needs.

In particular this study will focus on the fashion industry since it is considered on the most important player in the process of ensuring sustainable consumption and production patterns. The reason is that there are many and severe social and environmental externalities connected to all stages required for clothes manufacturing; starting with the extraction of raw materials, production of fibers and yarns for obtaining fabric, assembly, packaging, transport and delivery, consumer use and final disposal. The entire procedure is sadly known to be characterized by high water usage, pollution derived from chemicals used in dyeing and the difficulty of recycling fashion products which eventually finish in landfills or are incinerated. That’s enough! This whole mechanism must change and slow down. In this way we could benefit from superior quality products which demonstrate an ethical, environmental, and social engagement, enabling us to appreciate and value them even over time. The future is green: the modern consumer is ready to switch to a more conscious buying which satisfies his ethical and moral identity. Indeed, consumers are usually prone to buy goods which make them feel better, because by fulfilling a set of values, they can enhance their self-image. Psychological human needs involve affection, empathetic, involvement, creation, identity and freedom. Clothing is considered a prominent tool used to create one’s expressed identity or personal style, but it also enables participation in social groups and class, and creativity. For this reason, the aim of this study is to establish a relationship between the individual’s personality traits and his willingness to pay for sustainable apparel. The personality traits examined are the famous Big Five: Extraversion, Agreeableness, Consciousness, Neuroticism and Openness.

The hypothesized relationships have been tested through partial least squares structural equation modeling technique.

The answers have been collected by means of a questionnaire involving a sample of 100 people, in particular the study focus on young Italian female (age comprised between 19-35 years old) because the literature affirms that they represent the segment of the population who have little awareness of the social impact of their fashion consumption, and nonetheless exhibit the highest level of demand for new fashion items.

Indeed, despite of the increasing interest in sustainable fashion characterizing the last few years, this argument is still new and little known to a large part of the population.