Investigating environmentally sustainable consumption: A diary study of home-based consumption behaviors

This study analyzes three environmentally sustainable household consumption behaviors (optimizing the use of domestic water, minimizing food waste, and mini- mizing plastic packaging usage) through the model of goal-directed behavior. The findings show that attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, antici- pated emotions, and habits are all significant predictors of the desire to adopt sus- tainable consumption behaviors, which directly fosters the intention to adopt these behaviors. Intention–behavior links were unique for each behavior; minimizing plastic packaging usage was the most difficult behavior to implement. This study offers use- ful insights into people's sustainable consumption goals and their intentions to adopt responsible consumption behaviors. A generalizable model of environmentally sus- tainable household behaviors that considers the three behaviors simultaneously is presented. This study suggests that business and policy strategies that could success- fully promote sustainability in the household might proceed by, for example, empow- ering consumers or changing their habits.