The The Sustainability Paradox: Why Consumers Profess Green Values but Choose Unsustainable Products

Sadique Ali; Abdullah

doi:10.59890/ijir.v4i5.178

Authors

Sadique Ali Telkom University Bandung Indonesia
Abdullah BPP University, London England

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.59890/ijir.v4i5.178

Keywords:

Sustainable Consumption, Attitude-Behavior Gap, Green Hypocrisy, Moral Licensing, Psychological Distance

Abstract

This study examines the sustainability attitude–behavior gap, where consumers support sustainability but continue purchasing unsustainable products. The paper develops and validates the Sustainable Consumption Dissonance Architecture (SCDA), a framework integrating seven mechanisms: moral licensing, psychological distance, system justification, identity threat, construal level incongruence, choice architecture friction, and social norm complexity. The research includes four studies: a systematic review of 296 articles, a cross-national survey of 4,847 consumers across 12 countries using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), a pre-registered experiment with 1,284 participants, and an 18-month longitudinal panel study tracking 612 consumers. Findings show that the SCDA framework explains 67% of the variation in the sustainability attitude–behavior gap. Moral licensing emerged as the strongest predictor, while psychological distance and identity threat significantly reduced sustainable purchasing behavior. The study also proposes seven practical interventions and estimates that reducing the gap by 15 percentage points could create a $4.7 trillion sustainable market opportunity globally

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