ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Environmental Psychology
Influential Factors Shaping Consumers' Green Packaging Purchase Intentions
Provisionally accepted
- School of Art and Design, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou, China
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Rapid consumption upgrading and industrial transformation are straining the ecological capacity of China’s Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area, where green packaging is viewed as a crucial means of easing this burden. The conventional theory of planned behavior is limited in explaining green consumption. This study examined green packaging purchasing behavior in the Greater Bay Area by augmenting the conventional theory of planned behavior model to incorporate environmental concern and the willingness to pay a premium. The extended model was evaluated using survey data from 370 Chinese consumers, employing covariance-based structural equation modeling analysis and mediation effect testing in SPSS 26 and AMOS 28. The results indicate that attitude, perceived behavioral control, and willingness to pay a premium significantly predict consumers’ behavioral intention for green packaging. Environmental concern plays a pivotal role, not only by amplifying attitudes, perceived behavioral control, and willingness to pay a premium, but also by indirectly influencing behavioral intention. However, subjective norm did not exert a significant effect on behavioral intention. The extended model demonstrated a notable improvement in explanatory power, with R2 rising from 0.710 to 0.859 for behavioral intention and from 0.870 to 0.912 for actual purchase behavior relative to the conventional model. This incorporates value-based antecedents lacking in the conventional model and elucidates performance improvements. These findings underscore the theoretical significance of incorporating environmental concern and the willingness to pay a premium into the traditional behavioral model, demonstrating that such enhancements markedly improve the comprehension and forecasting of green purchase behavior.
Keywords: environmental concern2, GreaterBay Area4, green packaging1, theory of planned behavior5, Willingness to Pay a Premium3
Received: 22 Oct 2025; Accepted: 11 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wang, Li and Luh. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Ding-Bang Luh
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