Environmental segmentation: young millennials’ profile in an emerging economy

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this study is to segment young millennials in an emerging economy based on their environmental attitudes and purchase intentions. The study also attempts to describe the segments and highlight their differences in terms of happiness, frugality, environmental locus of control, and environmental knowledge. Design/methodology/approach The study sample consisted of 227 Turkish undergraduate students. A two-step cluster analysis was performed on environmental attitudes and purchase intentions scores. The differences among the clusters were then examined according to happiness, frugality, environmental locus of control, and environmental knowledge variables. Findings A two-step cluster analysis identified three clusters, namely, “non-greens”, “reluctant greens” and “true greens”, all of whom differed in terms of environmental attitudes and purchase intentions. Non-greens (n = 16) and true greens (n = 121) yielded the lowest and the highest scores for environmental attitudes and purchase intentions, respectively. Three clusters also differed significantly in terms of frugality. Environmental knowledge levels of non-greens differed from those of reluctant greens and true greens. There is no significant difference regarding happiness and environmental locus of control among clusters. Practical implications Local and international companies interested in marketing green products to young millennials in emerging economies may enhance their understanding of non-green and green young millennials in the target markets and differentiate their marketing strategies for each segment. Originality/value Given the need for a better understanding of young millennials’ environmental behavior in an emerging economy, the current study contributes to the literature by segmenting young Turkish millennials based on their environmental attitudes and purchase intentions, further describing the consumer segments with different variables such as happiness, frugality, environmental locus of control and environmental knowledge.

Sustainable Consumption Patterns in Different Settings

“…First attempts to segment the market based on sustainable consumption usually employed sociodemographic segmentation criteria, such as gender, age, income, or education. However, according to Coskun & Ozbuk (2019), such segmentation lacks explanatory power and fails to provide more precise insights into underlying factors of so-called "green" consumers. Therefore, research on sustainability-based segmentation shifted its focus from demographic and geographic to psychographic and behavioural segmentation.…”

“…Therefore, research on sustainability-based segmentation shifted its focus from demographic and geographic to psychographic and behavioural segmentation. There are many attempts over the past decade to segment the green market in terms of various segmentation variables such as environmental knowledge, values, concern, lifestyle, attitudes, and behaviour (Burke et al, 2014;Verain et al, 2015;Peyer et al, 2017;Szakaly et al, 2017;Sarti et al, 2018;Balderjahn et al, 2018;Coskun and Ozbuk, 2019;etc.). According to Verain et al (2015), it is important to consider the heterogeneity of consumers while studying sustainable behaviours, since consumers differ in many aspects, being it the importance they attach to sustainability or the type of sustainable behaviours they perform.…”

“…The second important step after segmenting the market is a description of the segments for a thorough understanding of their characteristics. Many sustainability-based segmentation studies use various descriptor variables such as sociodemographics, perceived consumer effectiveness, concerns, and values (Balderjahn et al, 2018), happiness (Coskun & Ozbuk, 2019), etc. However, consumer engagement into sustainable consumption still has not been empirically investigated as a descriptor variable even though several studies (Banyte et al, 2020;Piligrimiene et al, 2020) suggest an association between engagement and sustainable behaviour.…”

Sustainable Marketing

“…As such, past studies segmented green consumers in different cultures and different contexts (Do Raposo 2007, 2008;Khalina et al 2017). Additionally, Coşkun and Yetkin (2019) clustered young consumers based on their green preferences. Furthermore, Bhaduri and Ha-Brookshire (2015) studied the impact of demographic variables such as gender in evaluating sustainability claims.…”

The great Millennials’ trouble: leading or confused green generation? An Italian insight

“…Despite its green image, the Millennial's consumption of green products has not been deeply researched (Smith and Brower 2012). In particular, no many studies focused on the differences within Millennials generation in terms of green consumption (Coşkun and Özbük 2019) and motivations to buy or not to buy green products. In order to fill this gap, this paper aims at describing green consumer behaviour of the Millennials generation, in order to understand if Millennials can be considered as the "Green Generation."…”