Are Religious Consumers Less Wasteful?

What is it about?

The world is wasting 1/3 of the food produced every year. Imagine someone buys a large size pizza, divides it into three big slices, then he or she throws away one slice. How wasteful he/or she is? The situation is even more critical in global food waste because we lose not only the money invested in producing food that is discarded, but also all the social and environmental costs, including water, land, energy, to name a few.

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Photo by Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash

Photo by Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash

Why is it important?

This study extended prior literature by incorporating established antecedents of sustainable consumer behaviours and religiosity into a coherent model. The results contributed to the vast literature documenting the effects of culture—of which religion is certainly a very important component—on sustainable consumer behaviours—of which food waste reduction is a particularly pressing issue. Compared to the many previous applications that focus on TPB’s direct predictors of intentions, the current paper examined and supported the importance of the specific background variable of religiosity. Accordingly, scholars need to focus not only on the direct predictors of consumer intentions and behaviours but also on the underlying variables that shape those direct predictors. Furthermore, the current study applied an extended TPB model that includes personal norms and activism. These added constructs showed better prediction for intentions in the context under investigation. Thus, scholars should consider that mainstream reasoned action variables are not necessarily better, while normative-based predictors may be more relevant, as in this case. Conclusively, despite the limited use of the religion-based approach, the current study emphasized its importance in guiding food waste reduction interventions.

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