Research On The Impact Mechanism Of Carbon Labeling On Low-Carbon Product Consumption Behavior

Climate change may lead to a double-disaster, including the potential to reverse human development progress and the threat to humanity’s survival. With the issue of climate change becoming a social hot topic, both governments and companies are facing climate-related costs, risks, benefits, and opportunities. Countries and organizations are increasingly embracing low-carbon management strategies, which could be seen clearly from the generation and popularization of carbon labeling and low-carbon products. Western countries (UK, France, USA and Germany) as well as Asian countries (Japan, South Korea and Thailand), have started carbon labeling schemes in succession for popularizing low-carbon products. However, China is currently being at the initial stage of exploring carbon labeling and low-carbon products. For one thing, it makes China fall behind the pace of gobal low-carbon management; for another, it makes the export of Chinese products blocked by importing countries’ carbon barriers. Therefore, for the Chinese government and companies, it is an irresistible trend to integrate into gobal low-carbon management process, and popularize carbon labeling and low-carbon products.Thus, by which route or what kind of mechanism does carbon labeling influence consumers’ purchasing decisions on low-carbon products? Are there any statistically significant differences between different types of consumers, and to which degree do the differences differ? Also, what measures should be taken by government and companies to cope with these differences, so as to popularize carbon labeling schemes, stimulate low-carbon product consumption, and reach carbon reduction goals?Based on literature review, the discussion of theoretical framework and the comparison of carbon labeling practices, this dissertation respectively adopts exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation modeling, multiple-group analysis, independent-samples T test, and mediation test, to research on the impact mechanism of carbon labeling on low-carbon product consumption behavior, both theoretically and empirically. The full text consists of seven chapters.Chapter1:Introduction. This chapter presents research background, the research question, research contents, and research significance. Firstly, the proceeding and impact of carbon labeling schemes and related standards in developed countries are summarized. It illustrates that China has fallen behind developed countries in terms of popularizing carbon labeling, and it is necessory for China to accelerate the promotion of carbon labeling, so as to stimulate low-carbon product consumption. Thus, clarifying the impact mechanism of carbon-labeling on low-carbon product consumption behavior turned out to be important. Research on this topic can provide references for organizations to develop low-carbon management strategies, as well as enrich theoretical research on consumer behavior and intervention measures.Chapter2:Literature Review. According to the review of research in consumer’s attitude towards carbon labeling, influencing factors of low-carbon consumption behavior, and intervention measures of low-carbon consumption behavior, study on the impact mechanism of carbon-labeling on low-carbon product consumption behavior is indicated to be a trend of carbon labeling related study. However, existing studies related to this topic have several weaknesses, including:these researches focus on the survey of consumers’preferences, but ignore the observation of consumers’behaviors; select samples from specific groups, so the universality of conclusions yet to be verified; mainly concentrate on the influencing factors of low-carbon consumption behavior, but lack of exploration to that how carbon labeling influences the consumers’ behavior, etc.Chapter3:Theoretical Framework. Two core concepts, carbon labeling and low-carbon consumption, are discussed and defined in this chapter. Then behavior change theories in the realm of social psychology are summarized, and some of these theories that are closely related to this research are elaborated. According to persuasion theory, to maximize the effect of persuasion, it is necessary to explore the distinctions of different types of consumers in terms of receiving carbon labeling information and turning to low-cabon consumption. According to the theory of reasoned action, the theory of interpersonal behavior, and the theory of planned behavior, it is necessary to distinguish behavioral intention and actual behavior, so situational experiment instead of questionnaire is applied to measure the actual behavior. According to the value-belief-norm theory and the attitude-behavior-context theory, exploring the influencing factors of pro-environmental behavior, it is necessary to give full consideration to both internal psychological factors (such as environmental awareness, low-carbon cognition), and external social factors (such as education).Chapter4:International Carbon Labeling Practice. This chapter elaborates the logical basis of carbon labeling guiding low-carbon product consumption. Then, carbon labeling practices all over the world are carefully reviewed and compared, based on which the problems and implications of carbon labeling practices are concluded. In brief, the core elements of popularizing carbon labeling can be summarized as five aspects:organizers, participants, labeling types, certification standards, popularization strength, and coverage area. Current carbon labeling practices have the problems of lacking consistency in terms of carbon footprint standards and lacking normalization in terms of carbon labeling promotion. Therefore, for popularizing carbon labeling in China, it is necessory for the Chinese government to design standards at the top level, authorize specialized agency to be in charge of cabon footprint certification, and supervise carbon labeling certification and promotion strictly.Chapter5:Theoretical Model of Impact Mechanism. This chapter firstly refines key factors in the process of carbon labeling guiding low-carbon consumption behavior, therefrom identifies manifest variables to measure the impact of cabon labeling on low-carbon product consumption behavior. Then by adopting exploratory factor analysis, manifest variables are modified and their corresponding latent variables are matched; also by adopting confirmatory factor analysis, the fitness of factor structure and given data are further confirmed. At last, by discussing the relationship of latent variables, this chapter proposes hypotheses, in turn, builds the impact mechanism of cabon labeling on low-carbon product consumption behavior, which involves "Publicity and Education","Environmental Consciousness","Consumer Awareness""Comsumer Preference", and "Consumer Behavior".Chapter6:Empirical Test. This chapter describes analytical methods and sample data, and then analyzes the reliability and validity of the measurement model and the structural model. Next, all sample data without grouping are statistical analyzed by structural equation modeling, meanwhile, respectively from the perspective of education, income, spending, gender, and age, grouped data are statistical analyzed by multiple-group analysis. In addtion, to figure out the reason why several hypotheses are rejected, this chapter proposes further hypotheses and adoptes mediation test to verify these hypotheses. Besides, at the level of manifest variable, independent-samples T test is adopted to carefully refine the distinction of different types of consumers.Chapter7:Conclusions and Prospects. This chapter reviews the full text, summarizes conclusions and innovations, and then proposes policy recommendations. In addition, it elaborates on the weaknesses of this research and points out future research directions.Based on questionnaire survey and scenario experiments toward873consumers in6cities, major hypotheses are tested by structural equation modeling and mediation test. In addition, different types of consumers are compared using multiple-group analysis and independent-samples T test. The following conlusions are drawn as the result of these empirical tests:1."Consumer Behavior" is significantly affected by "Consumer Preference" on which "Consumer Awareness" has a significant effect, and "Consumer Preference" mediates the "Awareness-Behavior" relationship. Empirical work shows that "Consumer Preference" affects "Consumer Behavior" significantly and "Consumer Preference" is influenced significantly by "Consumer Awareness". Meanwhile, the effect of "Consumer Awareness" on "Consumer Behavior" is mediated by "Consumer Preference". The overall model using sample data without grouping and sub-dimensional models using grouped data manifest that the most significant path is "Consumer Awareness"â†'"Consumer Preference"â†'"Consumer Behavior". Fox eample,"Publicity and Education"(0.344)â†'"Consumer Awareness"(0.537)â†'"Consumer Preference"(0.710)â†'"Consumer Behavior" turned out to be the most significant path in the overall model. 2. For consumers with "higher education","higher income" or "higher cost of living","Consumer Awareness" is significantly affected by "Publicity and Education", whereas, for consumers with "lower education","lower income" or "lower cost of living","Consumer Awareness" is significantly affected by "Environmental Consciousness". Empirical work indicates that the effect of "Publicity and Education" on "Consumer Awareness" is more significant among populations with undergraduate or higher degrees, or having a monthly income of more than3000yuan, or spending at least1000yuan in each month for groceries. Also, for these groups, the most significant path is "Publicity and Education"â†'"Consumer Awareness"â†'"Consumer Preference"â†'"Consumer Behavior". In contrast, for their counterparts,"Environmental Consciousness", compared with "Publicity and Education", has more significant impact on "Consumer Awareness". Their path is "Environmental Consciousness"â†'"Consumer Awareness"â†'"Consumer Preference"â†'"Consumer Behavior".3. For female consumers,"Environmental Consciousness" has more significant effect on "Consumer Preference" than male consumers, however, they perform worse in terms of "Consumer Awareness" and "Consumer Behavior". Empirical work manifests that with respect to "Consumer Awareness", there is a distinctive difference between male and female consumers, and the former shows a better performance. Meanwhile, male consumers are more willing to purchase low-carbon products. Besides, in terms of "Consumer Behavior", male consumers have a higher ratio in purchasing low-carbon products and their carbon emissions are lower accordingly. However,"Environmental Consciousness" has no significant impact on "Consumer Preference" in the model for male consumers, but the impact is significant for female consumers.4. Middle-aged and elderly consumers show better performance both in "Environmental Consciousness" and in "Publicity and Education", whereas, for young consumers,"Environmental Consciousness" has more significant effect on "Consumer Preference". Empirical work suggests that consumers of different ages are at different levels of "Environmental Consciousness" and the elderly group performs better. A similar pattern could be seen in the dimension of "Publicity and Education", where significant difference exists between the younger and the older, and the latter perform better too. However, for the younger population,"Consumer Awareness" could be significantly influenced by "Environmental Consciousness", while the elderly could hardly be affected.According to all above results and conclusions, this dissertation proposes following policy recommendations:strengthen publicity to enhance consumer awareness of carbon labeling; play the demonstrative role of the high-end consumers in low-carbon consumption; reinforce publicity and education activities targeting female consumers to release their untapped potential; shape the young people’s perception in favor of a low-carbon lifestyle.The key innovations of this dissertation can be summarized as follows:(1) Built a theoretical model to indicate the impact mechanism of carbon labeling on low-carbon product consumption behavior. Different from previous research, this dissertation proposes that consumer’s low-carbon consumption behavior is stimulated by both internal psychological factors and external social factors. Thus, it builds an integrated theoretical model for reflecting the impact mechanism of carbon labeling on low-carbon product consumption behavior.(2) Conducted a scenario experiment by using the experimental research methodology. Adopt a scenario experiment to obverse consumer’s purchasing behavior, so as to make the purchasing situation as realistic as possible. To avoid confusion between behavioral intention and actual behavior, this dissertation adopts scenario experiment instead of questionnaire, which provides each participant with20yuan and different types of carbon labeling products, and then obverses his or her purchasing behavior.(3) Revealed the inherent laws of differences in terms of behavioral responding model towards carbon labeling between different types of consumers in China. This dissertation chooses samples with consideration of economic development level and geographical distribution, and then groups samples respectively by education, income, spending, gender, and age. After that, by adopting multiple-group analysis in structural equation modeling, it compares these groups’ behavioral responding model towards carbon labeling, and proposes policy recommendations accordingly.