RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 3.1 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY. 2. To analyze the attitude and behavior of Indian consumers towards green products

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1 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 5 th Dec , 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 77

2 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 78

3 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. 79

4 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 s 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 80

5 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 ) 81

6 Approach to Questionnaire Development 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 Barriers to green lifestyle (Dependent) 4 statements 4 points 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 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 82

7 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 (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 83

8 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 gauge 73 (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. 84