Impact of Green Product Attributes on Green Purchasing Intention with Special Reference to the Sport & Malt Ready-To-Drink (RTD) Beverage Industry in Sri Lanka: Mediating Effect of Consumers’ Environmental Attitudes

Abstract

Recent environmental concerns have greatly heightened the green product awareness of consumers globally. The Sport & Malt Ready-to-Drink beverage industry is a dynamic and fast-growing segment of the market that appeals to the emergence of an advanced active lifestyle among youth consumers and their preference for eco-friendly products. The objective of the study is to analyse the influence of green product attributes on customers’ green purchasing intentions with the mediating impact of consumer environmental attitudes, especially focused on the Sport & Malt Beverage category in Sri Lanka. A quantitative research strategy with a deductive approach was adopted for this study. Data was collected using a questionnaire from 385 carefully selected youth respondents from the Western Province of Sri Lanka. The study findings concluded that green product characteristics do have a significant impact on green purchase intention because of customers’ environmental attitudes. The physical attributes, perceptual attributes, and reflexive attributes were found to be significantly nuanced by the green purchasing intention. The mediating effect of consumer environmental attitudes was also statistically significant. Therefore, the findings of the present study provide valuable insight as to how marketers can optimise eco-friendly features of a product as well as environmental preservation efforts in order to build a deeper connection with the fast-growing segment of youth consumers who are more and more environmentally concerned. It also provides insight into the changing consumer behaviour patterns created by environmental concerns within the Sport & Malt RTD beverage industry in Sri Lanka.