Green Consumerism in Brunei Darussalam: Exploratory Study on Purchasing Behaviour

Introduction

Protecting and conserving the environment is not a one man's job, however one man can make a difference. Globalization and the Fourth Industrial Revolution (IR4) have led to the impacts on the environment either positively or negatively. Over the past few decades, environmental degradation has become a crucial matter that has captured global attention - from the rising sea level, global warming, climate change, scarcer natural resources, pollution from various sources to biodiversity loss which were mostly inflicted by humans. As a result, these concerning impacts are not only burdening the Earth, but the living things in it as well. Moreover, as the detrimental effects continue to occur, consumers are becoming attentive to the topic of green consumerism. People have become more environmentally aware after recognizing how serious ecological problems actually are (Han et al., 2009). As the result consumers’ sensitivity towards the environment has escalated because of the damaging outcome of human behavior on the environment, and the urgency to end it (Leonidou et al., 2010). This is supported by Wahid et al. (2011) where it was mentioned that consumers are fully aware of the huge effect that their buying behaviour has on the environment. Hence, green consumerism behaviors occupy an increasingly important role in advocating environmental awareness. From a report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change implies that changing lifestyle, diet and reducing energy consumption can have a considerable impact in lessening the destructive environmental degradation (Sachdeva et al., 2015).). In addition, there are increasing number of studies that found consumers' environmental ethics, moral obligation, and green attitude to be significant factors of green consumption (Akhtar et al., 2021; Testa et al., 2020; Yue et al., 2020).

The conservation and protection of the environment continued as an essential factor of Brunei Darussalam’s development process with the aim of sustainable development and, this is corresponding with Brunei Vision 2035. It is also observed that, the nation’s consumers are becoming more aware and knowledgeable on the importance of protecting the environment, from efforts by different bodies. For example, the Government have implemented formulated policies and strategies on the environment to move towards this goal (Ahmad et al., 2015). Some of the initiatives, including organizing environmental awareness activities and programmes such as (i) ‘No Plastic Bag Weekend’, which the government aims to slowly get rid of plastic bag use by 2019 (Abu Bakar, 2018) - this effort had been elevated to ‘No Plastic Bag Everyday’ which effectively command on 31st December 2018 (Brudirect, 2018), (ii) participation in Earth Hour event, car-free day every Sunday during ‘Bandarku Ceria’, (iii) reduction in the use of Styrofoam; along with (iv) the creation of local environmental clubs such as Green Brunei and Beach Bunch. Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are also joining in this “movement” by selling environmentally friendly products such as metal straws as a replacement for plastic straws, recyclable clothes, sustainable toothbrushes, kitchen utensils and make-up brushes and the initiative of the #zerowastebrunei campaign by local businesses, along with the advocative support of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in the nation. The aim of this study is to analyze the relationship of environmental knowledge, the demographic and socio-psychological determinants and consumers’ green purchase behaviours in Brunei Darussalam, with the application framework of the Affect-Behaviour-Cognition (ABC).