Emerging Green Consumerism in India: A Study of Green Awareness, Perception & Green Brand Preferences

1. INTRODUCTION

As it is said that the green consumer is someone who is environmentally and socially conscious and which leads him/her to purchase the products that are eco-friendly. Over the last few decades, it is being observed that people are changing their trends and lifestyle in a more environment conscious way paying more responsiveness towards green oriented behavior worldwide. The study and research about green consumerism has been interesting due to growing green awareness and significance of green orientation in the consumer purchasing process globally.

Green marketing was given prominence in the late 1980s and 1990s after the proceedings of the first workshop on Ecological marketing held in Austin, Texas (US), in 1975. Several books on green marketing began to be published thereafter. According to the Joel makeover (a writer, speaker and strategist on clean technology and green marketing), green marketing faces a lot of challenges because of lack of standards and public consensus to what constitutes "Green". The green marketing has evolved over a period of time. According to Peattie (2001), the evolution of green marketing has three phases. First phase was termed as "Ecological" green marketing, and during this period all marketing activities were concerned to help environment problems and provide remedies for environmental problems. Second phase was "Environmental" green marketing and the focus shifted on clean technology that involved designing of innovative new products, which take care of pollution and waste issues. Third phase was "Sustainable" green marketing. It came into prominence in the late 1990s and early 2000.The idea of green consumerism is very much important in this decade to popularize among all sections of society to save the planet Earth. Green consumerism is a movement to encourage people to buy food and other products such as organic food, lead-free petrol etc. which are considered as

more business and industries are joining in the green movement, either out of a real interest in saving the planet or a desire to capitalize on the growing consumer demand for greener ways. In India, though consumerism is gaining momentum after 1991, when India pitched her doors vulnerable to international trade, and the situation changed vividly and so did consumerism in India. Over the years various studies have investigated the concept of green consumer behaviour and have listed out factors that work as either barriers or enablers when it comes to consumer adoption of environmentally sustainable products or lifestyles.(Vishnu Nath, Rupesh Kumar, Rajat Agrawal, 2013

3. OBJECTIVES OF RESEARCH:

1. To study the conceptual framework regarding green awareness and green marketing and green consumerism 2. To study the changing perception of consumers towards green products in Rewari District. 3. To study the consumer awareness and brand preferences towards green products. 4. To identify and evaluate the factors influence consumer buying behaviour towards green products. 5. To find out the level of consumer‘s satisfaction towards green products

The study set to test the following hypotheses:- H01= There is no significant difference between men and women awareness towards green products. H02= There is no significant difference in satisfaction between respondents of different income group

The focus of this study is to understand the factors influencing consumers green buying behaviour and further to know the customer perception towards green products in Rewari city. The research design is exploratory cum descriptive. Primary and secondary data have been collected; Primary data has been collected through a structured questionnaire, personal interviews and observation. Purposive sampling method is adopted for the study. The study is confined to Rewari district only. respondents. The questionnaires were processed for coding the data in the computer. SPSS package was used for processing, classification, tabulation, analysis and interpretation of data. The following statistical techniques were applied depending on the nature of data collected from the respondents:- T test: It is used to determine whether there is a significant difference between the means of two groups. With all inferential statistics, we assume the dependent variable fits a normal distribution. • ANOVA: Analysis of variance is used to test differences between two or more means. The name is appropriate because inferences about means are made by analysing variance. • GARRET RANK METHOD: this method is used to assign a rank to the factors according to response of the respondents.

Section C of the questionnaire belongs to the factors, in this section there are seven factors. These factors were designed to examine the opinion of respondents about the factors and assign rank (1 to 7) according to their importance. To find out rank between the factors assigned by the respondents to factors, Garret rank method is used (To identify and evaluate the factors influenced consumer green buying behaviour). The reliability and validity test was conducted using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS).

were systematically tabulated, processed and made suitable for analyses and interpretations of the data.

Null Hypothesis: There is no significant difference between male and female awareness towards green products. Alternative Hypothesis: There is significant difference between male and female awareness towards green products.

As per the significance value of responses related to different statements, which shows the results according to gender indicates that there is no significant difference between responses of male and female consumers. There are six statements regarding consumer green awareness and green brand preferences towards green products and all reveal the same positive result. Value of t statistics of all the statements is more than 0.05. So genders do not impact on awareness of consumers, as responses of male and females are not significantly different. Hence null hypothesis is accepted. Null Hypothesis: There is no significant difference in level of satisfaction between respondent of different income group. Alternative Hypothesis: There is significant difference in level of satisfaction between respondents different income group.

As per the mean value of the responses regarding various statements which are to show the level of satisfaction of consumers and brand preferences towards green products, out of total twelve statements, three statements have shown positive response i.e. agreement of the respondents as their mean values lie between five and four which represent either strongly agree or agree. Five statements have shown neutral response i.e. they are indifferent regarding these statements as their mean values lie between three and four. Four statements have shown negative response i. e .disagreement of the respondents as their mean values lie between two and three. Overall it may be viewed that respondents are not fully satisfied regarding green brands.

A one way ANOVA test was performed on these mean scores obtained for the attributes to show the level of satisfaction towards Green products based on different income groups. P value of every statement is more than 0.05. Overall, a respondent which belongs to different income group do not make any difference in responding towards satisfaction; as responses of different income group are not significantly difference.

• In the present study male respondents (55%) are more in number than female respondents. It shows that male candidates preferred more the green products as compare to female. • Age group of 25-35 years (42.5%) have more preferred green products in comparison to other age groups Though the other age groups are also interested in it but they show less interest than 25-35 years age group. • Age group of 35-45 years and above 45 (15%) is not much in favor of green products. They also believe that green products are very costly in comparison to chemical based product and the effect of green product is very slow. • The result reveals that post graduate respondents (34.37%) like more the herbal products compared to other respondents which are followed by the graduate respondents (28.8%). It shows that qualified • Employees (45%) are in more favor of green products than the other category. • Out of total 160 respondents, 120 respondents are married and remaining unmarried. It shows that married people like more green products. • This study find that mostly respondents (55%) lie ‗less than 250000‘ income group. It shows that middle class people prefer green products.

• In most of the respondents families all the members used green products so these families know more about the benefits of green products as they are using the green products. • More than 50% of the respondents are using green product since less than one year period. It indicates that recently consumers are more aware regarding green products

• Out of the total six statements regarding consumer awareness towards green products, two statements give positive response as the mean lie between four and five which shows that respondents are agree with these statements but for the other four statements, respondents are indifferent as the mean between three and four. It shows that consumers are not fully aware now regarding green brands.

• There are twelve statements regarding customer satisfaction in which only three statements have shown positive response i. e. agreement of respondents as their mean value lie between four and five.

other four statements give negative response as their mean value lie between two and three.- • The statement ‗this brand is well priced‘ has shown lowest mean value (2.59) and standard deviation (.927) is very high. It shows that respondents are not satisfied regarding the price of Green products. Overall consumers are not fully satisfied regarding this brand. • To look out the responses on various statements according to the different income group, ANOVA test is applied and result showed that income of respondents does not make any difference in responding towards the satisfaction of respondents.

• To know the preference of consumers regarding different factors, Garret rank method is applied on the selected seven factors and result showed that product benefits is most important factor regarding green brand that is highly influenced the consumers of green products. • Product quality is also very important in the case of personal care products hence respondents give second rank to it. • Product price and product packaging of green brand do not come up the expectations of consumers of green products.

In the era of cut throat competition, it is very necessary to understand the behaviour of consumers as their needs, wants desires are changing very frequently. Now a day‘s consumers are more health conscious and prefer green products. The present study attempts to examine the perception of consumer and brand preferences towards green products in Rewari city. This study concludes that there is no significant difference between male and female awareness towards patanjali products but consumers are not fully aware regarding green brands. This study also reveals the truth that there is no significant difference in satisfaction between respondents of different income group but consumers are not fully satisfied regarding price of green products. Product quality and product benefits are main factors which influence respondents buying behavior towards green products. The study since marketing communication regarding green practices need to focus more on theme and message. Advertising appeals using green products and practices are likely to move emotions and result in persuasion. It is important for markets to be in top of mind recall of consumers to gain maximum from their green brand positioning. Constant and continuous communication from the organizations‘ side is required to make an impact and create a distinct green positioning and ultimately resulting a rise in green consumerism.

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Assistant Professor, Department of Commerce, Indira Gandhi University, Meerpur, Rewari