Abstract

This study intends to segment consumers by their value-focused lifestyle characteristics and examine differences in the perceptions and behaviors of sustainable consumption among the identified segments. Consumers’ altruism and future orientation tendencies, which have been found to influence sustainable consumption behavior, are added to the segmentation system and, specifically, the differences in consumers’ involvement with environment and their perception of climate change are compared among the lifestyle segments. Additionally, the group differences in the causal relationship between sustainable consumption intention and actual purchase behavior are examined. The results from an online survey with a sample of 450 adult consumers across the country show that consumers are classified into three types of lifestyle segments: ‘innovative altruists’, ‘success-oriented egoists’, and ‘stability-seeking future-orienters’. It was also found that ‘innovative altruists’ and ‘stability-seeking future-orienters’ have a relatively high level of interest with the environment and climate change. These groups also show a higher level of purchase intentions and behavior toward sustainable consumption. In addition, the relationship between sustainable consumption intention and actual behavior was found to be significant among ‘innovative altruists’ and ‘stability-seeking future-orienters’, but the relationship was not significant among ‘success-oriented egoists’. These findings suggest that consumers’ sustainable consumption behavior is basically value-driven and thus, marketers, government, and environmental organizations may need to consider a value-based segmentation approach for their target market segmentation.