Environmental awareness, consumption of organic products and gender.

Autordo Prado, Nagela Bianca
  1. Introduction

    The late 1940s marked the Green Revolution beginning with the introduction of new cultivation practices, which gained popularity between 1960 and 1970, through the development of mechanization and artificial farming techniques in the field (Pinheiro, Carneiro, Pinheiro, & Nascimento, 2018). Since then, problems related to the soil, air and water pollution intensified and, together with the industrial capitalist model, these problems began not only to promote changes in the natural environment but also in people buying behavior.

    Throughout 20th century, discussions around sustainable development have expanded in the political and educational area worldwide, sensitizing the human being to issues of collective interest and stimulating critical and ethical thinking, with the discourse of achieving the satisfaction of human desires without compromising future generations (Santana, 2018).

    In this context, concerns about the environment began to grow (Shelest, Ionov & Tikhomirov, 2017), and discussions incorporating the environmental theme are gaining space in different institutions, segments and levels, since how much more institutions debate the ecology, more it expresses itself as responsible with its surroundings pressures for changes mainly in the corporate and governmental environments (Silva, Czykiel, Figueiro, Santos & Galvao, 2013; Rotta, Batistela & Ferreira, 2017).

    Through this scenario, organic production has gained popularity because it has a sustainable basis and, its principles are environmentally correct, socially just and it has an economically viable production (Pinheiro, Carneiro, Pinheiro, & Nascimento 2018). Thus, the consumers of this class of products present a purchasing behavior that combines environmental preservation with the transition to a more sustainable society (Scalco, Stefano, Sartori & Ceschi, 2017).

    Therefore, the understanding of the intentional behavior of buying organic products is essential for the sustainable consumption realization (Hsu, Chang & Lin, 2019; Qi & Ploeger, 2019), since Brazil is the third largest producer of organic products and has the largest consumer market for organic products in Latin America (Branco, Watanabe & Alfinito, 2019; FiBL & IFOAM, 2019). Furthermore, Branco, Watanabe and Alfinito (2019), admit that the Brazilian consumer has a purchasing profile with particular motivators, such as the fact that 67% prefer going to specialized retailers in order to find a greater supply of healthy foods, as 76% of Brazilians affirm to read labels in order to evaluate the nutritional content. Moreover, for being a multifaceted construct, the buying behavior undergoes alteration according to the gender, because men and women have different needs (Gorni, Gomes & Dreher, 2012). These data reinforce the need for deeper investigations about the purchase drivers.

    Thus, this research aimed to propose and test a theoretical model to evaluate how some dimensions of environmental awareness influence the intention of consuming organic products and how the gender influence it too. Therefore, the research questions are: "What is the influence of the environmental awareness in the intention of consuming organic products?" and "What is the influence of the gender in the intention of consuming organic products?"

    The paper is structured in five parts, in addition to this introduction. In Section 2,itis presented the theoretical framework approaching the dimensions of environmental awareness and its relation with organic products consumption. Section 3 describes the methodological part of the study. The results are presented and discussed in Section 4. Finally, the study's final considerations are shown, indicating its contributions, limitations and suggestions for future studies in Section 5 that is followed by the references in Section 6.

  2. Environmental awareness dimensions and its relation with organic products' consumption

    The current context referred to the human confrontation with the natural environment has demanded the need to rethink, be and act from humanity on a world level, evoking a new more equitable "worldview" valuing the life as a collective maintenance commitment (Pinheiro, Carneiro, Pinheiro, & Nascimento 2018; Qi & Ploeger, 2019; Ruano, 2017; Santana, 2018). Since the Stockholm Conference in 1972, although with different denominations, the expression "sustainable development" was present, but this denomination became popular in 1992 after the United Nations Conference on the Environment in Rio de Janeiro (Barbieri & Silva, 2011), treating concerns about maintaining the future life (Furtado & Sampaio, 2018).

    Pitanga (2016) argues that the environmental crisis is not strictly linked to "hyperconsumption", but to a knowledge crisis, more social than ecological, which has brought to the fore the problems of social inequality that, in order to be reversed, requires global mobilization (Svanstrom, Lozano-Garcia, & Rowe, 2008). On the other hand, Furtado & Sampaio (2018) attribute the repercussion of environmental issues to the media, a vehicle of communication that drives the purchase together with disrespectful organizational practices (Ritter, Hidalgo, & Haag, 2018).

    However, it is known that consumption is a primordial activity for the human life maintenance, since it be carried out in a healthy way in service of vital needs. However, when fulfilling desires, consumption can become an impulsive and irrational act. In this context, conscious consumption proposes a reflection on the consumer lifestyle (Capucho, Baccaro, & Raminelli, 2018).

    Sustainable development aims to change the behavior and habits of citizens in relation to consumption and production activities and is based on the three main pillars of sustainability: economic, environmental and social (Santana, 2018). However, such development takes different interpretations according to the perspective as analyzed and, therefore, contemplates respect for diversity, since each individual has its subjective form of interpreting sustainability according to its values (Dubey, Gunasekaran & Deshpande, 2017, Lopez-Cabrales & Valle-Cabrera, 2019).

    In the middle of the return in relation to environmental, economic and social crises, the progress of environmentally friendly innovations was boosted (Capucho, Baccaro & Raminelli, 2018; Niu, Jiang & Li, 2010), making common concerns about sustainable development, which has manifested itself in several product segments, including the increased consumption of organic. Particularly in relation to food cultivation, until the middle of the last century agricultural practices was heavily dependent on the chemical industry (Duran & Wives, 2018). However, in order to achieve the proposal for more sustainable food production, organic farming began to expand (Campos, Hidalgo, Kist, Pedroso & Dalmoro, 2018; Kim, 2019; Scalco, Stefano, Sartori & Ceschi, 2017), by strengthening the affective ties between human and environment, as a way of initiation and deeper environmental awareness.

    Organic production has ideological foundations in seeking to contribute to the society improvement beyond cooperation with the environment. Thus, organic producers are protagonists in the sustainable development dissemination (Campos, Hidalgo, Kist, Pedroso & Dalmoro, 2018; Pinheiro, Carneiro, Pinheiro & Nascimento 2018) and they are, also, contributing to the innovation in the sustainable food sector with crop systems specially directed to social, as well as, environmental nutritional responsibility (Scalvedi & Saba, 2018). On the other hand, in the systematic literary review of Campos, Hidalgo, Kist, Pedroso and Dalmoro (2018), it is revealed that, in addition to environmental awareness, there is a need for an entrepreneurial attitude of organic producers.

    Consumers of organic foods, therefore, have an ideology behind the purchase of this products class and they like to have the privilege of belonging to the class of conscious consumers (Kim, 2019), forming a questioner consumer profile of urban life, who is concerned about the recurrent unsustainable way of life (Pinheiro, Carneiro, Pinheiro & Nascimento 2018).

    The search for well-being-health, perception of quality, taste and high number of nutrients (Branco, Watanabe & Alfinito, 2019; Curvelo, Watanabe & Alfinito, 2019; Demirtas, 2018; Kim, 2019)-is among the organic products consumption motivators (Furtado & Sampaio, 2018), because the conscious consumers is aware of the product benefits for themselves and for the environment. Consequently, the consumer is concerned about his physical and mental health. In consumers concerned about the aesthetic benefits, the search for sustainable products must meet the expectations that touch on perceived values, in which the sustainable cosmetics sale gains market expansion (Furtado & Sampaio, 2018).

    The study by Hsu, Chang and Lin (2019) draws attention to the significant health concern influence for healthy products consumption. With this, the offer of security for the consumer should be a priority in the business strategies formulation that should seek for a balance between economic profit and generation of value for the environment. Like this, the organics consumption, whether consciously or not, is positive for the environment and has significantly transformed the processes of food choice because it represents a food ideology that corroborates with a set of values (Pinheiro, Carneiro, Pinheiro & Nascimento, 2018).

    However, the organic consumption dissemination is tortuous and has several obstacles that make the research on consumer behavior reflect, only in the theoretical scope, expectations that match a conscious profile (Tambosi, Mondini, Borges & Hein, 2015). In the literary review of Campos, Hidalgo, Kist, Pedroso and Dalmoro (2018), the cultivation technical difficulty, the production management lack and the public incentives absence are the entry barriers features in...

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