An Environmental Perspective on Clothing Consumption: Consumer Segments and Their Behavioral Patterns

Abstract

Efforts to decrease the environmental impact of today's clothing industry across the entire process of production, purchase, maintenance, and disposal can be driven by either suppliers or consumers. Changing the behavior of the latter, however, requires an understanding of current clothing consumption patterns-a currently under-researched area. We therefore shed more light on these patterns in the purchase, use and maintenance, and discard phases by analyzing unique data on 4617 adult consumers (aged 18-65) from Germany, Poland, Sweden, and the U.S., who we divide into five segments based on clothing consumption behavior. At the low end of the spectrum is a consumer segment that earns the least, consumes mostly budget brand clothing, and is the least open to alternative more environmentally friendly business models such as fashion leasing or clothing libraries. At the other extreme lies a small segment that earns the most, engages in high consumption of medium or premium brand clothing, and is most open to alternative business models. Lying between these two is a primarily female segment that purchases an above average amount of clothing from budget brands. In addition to the segments' different reported purchase behavior and a varying openness to alternative business models, we identify differences in willingness to pay for clothing made of material that is more environmentally friendly than conventional fabrics. These observations suggest several promising directions for environmental interventions tailored toward specific consumer segments.

Predicting consumer adoption of branded subscription services: A prospect theory perspective

“…Chamberlin and Boks (2018) assess how PSS providers use marketing communications to influence adoption intentions. This focus on fashion can on the one hand be explained by the large negative environmental impact of apparel products at every stage of their life cycle (Gwozdz, Steensen Nielsen, & Müller, 2017). On the other hand, there have been collaborative consumption business models in fashion sharing attributes with PSS in a number of European countries that have experienced success in their respective niches for some time.…”

“…Second, research indicates that consumers have difficulty weighing up the total environmental performance of PSS (Vogtländer, Bijma, & Brezet, 2002), for example because the environmental cost of producing and disposing of textile products is underestimated in comparison with the environmental cost of moving products (Gwozdz, Steensen Nielsen, & Müller, 2017). This is also because the actual environmental benefit depends on the configuration of the PSS in question (Tukker, 2015).…”

“…The service is configured to allow the provider to choose clothing items to be rented out for a specified amount of time based on an incomplete set of consumer preferences. This flexibility on the provider's part increases asset utilisation to improve the environmental performance of a product that is plagued by a myriad of environmental and social issues (Caniato, Caridi, Crippa, & Moretto, 2012) that make the growing fashion and apparel industry one of the largest polluters globally in both absolute and relative terms (Gwozdz, Steensen Nielsen, & Müller, 2017).…”

Sustainable Consumer Behaviour: A Collection of Empirical Studies

“…Rather than studying consumer opinions and intentions, An Environmental Perspective on Clothing Consumption: Consumer Segments and Their Behavioural Patterns [8] uses self-reported consumer behaviour as the basis for the segmentation of consumers in four different countries. Based on reported number of clothing items purchased, expenditures, brand, acquisition mode, and sustainable clothing material purchased, five segments were found, ranging from low amount of consumption and purchasing at budget outlets to high-volume consumption and premium outlets.…”

Effects of Green Self-Identity and Cognitive and Affective Involvement on Patronage Intention in Eco-Friendly Apparel Consumption: A Gender Comparison

“…Several studies have been conducted to examine consumers' value and motivation behind sustainable apparel consumption [14][15][16]. Building upon the insightful findings provided by those studies, the researchers of this study seek to move forward to examine consumer attitude of the subgroups to answer the question of whether a difference may exist between male and female consumers in sustainable apparel consumption.…”