Prosperity creates extravagance. With economic development, rising consumer purchasing power, and expanding manufacturing sectors, demand for textiles and apparel is increasing daily. Unquestionably, it boosts national economies while producing unprecedented amounts of textile waste. The surge exacerbates environmental issues while also providing an opportunity to convert it into useful raw material through a circular economy (CE), a circular model in which virgin material use is reduced through reusing, recycling, and reproduction. Considering its significance, China and other Asian nations adopted this model long ago (Chen et al., 2021). However, it is still in its early stages in India, with only 1% of the material estimated to be recycled (Mehta, 2022). To reap the benefits from the circular model, the Indian textile and apparel industry must urgently transform into circular textile products (CTP), which require only a fifth of the materials and a seventh of the energy in their production compared to new products.

Furthermore, it facilitated businesses' participation in ecological actions such as raw material preservation and product value addition. It provides a viable route to the Indian apparel and textiles industry, which consumes an estimated 110 million tons of material per year and generates more than 90 million tons of fashion waste, which is disposed of in landfills or burned (Mehta, 2022). As a 2.3% contributor to GDP, 13% contributor to domestic manufacturing, and the fifth-largest apparel and textile exporter in the world (India Brand Equity Foundation, 2022), it is the responsibility of India's textile industry to shift from a linear paradigm (take, make, use, discard) to a circular model; it is also essential to encourage CTP in the domestic economy. However, the success of a company and its products depends on its customer base; thus, studies on the factors responsible for attracting and influencing consumers and their purchase intention/behavior for CTP are required in India.

Previous research by Singhal et al. (2019), Wang et al. (2020), and Kumar et al. (2021) demonstrated that several factors influence consumer intentions toward remanufactured products, with perceived risk and benefits being the most common influencing factors. Consumers who perceive some risks, such as financial, time, performance, social, and physical risks, are discouraged from making decisions (Wang and Hazen, 2015). In contrast, consumers who perceive benefits are encouraged to do so (Wahjudi et al., 2018) because they seek out personal benefits, such as discounts or incentives, low cost, subsidies, exchange value, and good quality, from the remanufactured products. Thus, the risk and benefits perception affects consumers' intentions and behavior. Moreover, previous research has shown that consumers' environmental consciousness (EC) plays an essential role in shaping their intentions for remanufactured, eco-friendly, and green products (Costa et al., 2021; Kumar et al., 2021) because one's knowledge or ignorance about an issue significantly impacts their consciousness and, consequently, decision-making process (Corral-Verdugo, 2022). Hence, integrating these variables in future studies adds to the body of knowledge on CE, particularly on consumer perceptions of CTP.

According to Ajzen (1991), the cognitive factors of the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) [viz. behavioral attitude (AT), social norms (SN), and perceived behavior control (PBC)] play a significant role in determining the behavioral intention of an individual. AT exhibits the mental state of a person's reflection (negative or positive) toward a particular behavior or intention (Paul et al., 2016). SN refers to the social effect that teachers, friends, family members, and others have on an individual to execute a particular behavior or decision (Bong Ko and Jin, 2017). PBC refers to the perceived ease (or difficulty) of executing any task that is vulnerable to an individual's psychological state (Khor and Hazen, 2016). It plays a vital role in forecasting his behavior and can modify intention owing to its direct influence (Wiederhold and Martinez, 2018). A resourceful person with a positive attitude, the support of family and friends, and the perception of ease has a strong desire for specific behavior. As a result, TPB has been widely applied across behavioral and intentional domains, establishing itself as the dominant expectancy-value theory (Shaw et al., 2000; Echegaray and Hansstein, 2017). In empirical studies, TPB has outperformed previous TRA in predictive ability (Beck and Ajzen, 1991; Giles and Cairns, 1995). TPB has also been used to investigate customers' purchase intention/behavior, perceptions, and willingness to pay for remanufactured, circular, green, and organic products. However, using TPB to judge intention for CTP is a new addition to the CE literature. Therefore, an empirical understanding of cognitive factors like EC, PB, PR, AT, SN, and PBC, and consumer purchase intentions in the context of CTP aids in filling a knowledge gap in the field, raising public awareness of CE and CTP, and luring businesspeople and the government to create laws and regulations that would encourage investment in CE-related infrastructure, technology, and education. As a result, small and medium-sized businesses would have new opportunities in India, and the circular business model would also create jobs, produce sustainable textiles, and preserve the environment. In order to gather primary data, this study uses questionnaires based on the above cognitive and psychological factors that will affect consumers' intention toward CTP.

The current study gathers the survey-based multivariate primary data on certain cognitive factors (viz., EC, PB, PR, AT, SN, and PBC) that influence Indian consumers' purchase intention toward CTP. The final data sample collected online through Google Forms comprised 409 respondents from Indian consumers (including 230 male and 179 female respondents). The data were first screened for missing, inappropriate, and outlier responses before sending them out to establish a measurement model (for reliability and validity assessment) using AMOS 24.0.

The current study conceptualizes the causal effect of certain cognitive variables (viz., environmental consciousness, perceived risks, and perceived benefits) and the fundamental factors of the theory of planned behavior (TPB) (viz., behavioral attitude, social norms, and perceived behavioral control) on Indian consumers' purchase intention toward circular textile products (CTPs). This study provides a novel multivariate dataset in the research domain of consumers' behavior toward circular economy, circular textile products, and textile waste management, particularly in the Indian context. Due to the sheer scantiness of the literature on consumer behavior and CTPs in the Indian context, empirical studies are required to understand the role of cognitive factors like EC, PB, PR, AT, SN, and PBC in predicting consumer purchase intentions toward CTPs. These empirical researches would contribute to the knowledge gap in the field, raising public awareness of CE and CTPs, and attracting business people and the government to create laws and regulations to encourage investment in CE-related infrastructure, technology, and education. As a result, small and medium-sized businesses would have new opportunities in India, and the circular business model would also create jobs, produce sustainable textiles, and preserve the environment. The distinctiveness of the dataset is the inclusion of a cognitive environmental factor, i.e., consumers' environmental consciousness along with perceived risks and benefits as attributional variables CTPs, while adopting one of the most widely applied theories, the TPB, across behavioral and intentional domains. Given the dearth of literature and knowledge gap in the research domain of consumers' behavior toward circular economy, circular textile products, and textile waste management in the Indian context, the current dataset would be of great use for the researchers in understanding the role of factors like EC, PB, PR, AT, SN, and PBC in shaping consumers' purchase intentions toward CTPs. Moreover, the dataset may also be used by local authorities for knowing the consumers' perceived level of adopting CTPs thus enabling them to formulate the policies for promoting CTPs accordingly. The findings from this dataset would be beneficial for the government to raise public awareness of CE and CTPs and create laws and regulations to encourage investment in CE-related infrastructure, technology, and education. As the data are multivariate and possess metric and latent properties, they can be used for complex modeling like mediation and moderated-mediation. Moreover, comparable distribution of the data across the categories of gender, awareness, and prior experience of CTPs also offers the likelihood of testing a moderation or multigroup SEM model.

The datasets presented in this study can be found in online repositories. The names of the repository/repositories and accession number(s) can be found in the article/Supplementary material.

Written informed consent was obtained from the individual(s) for the publication of any potentially identifiable images or data included in this article.

IA conceptualized the study, wrote the original draft, and performed the statistical analysis. MS developed the questionnaire and conducted the survey. SK performed the data curation, took care of the methodology, and wrote the second draft. IS and AC reviewed and edited the final draft. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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