Food waste is a major sustainable development problem in the world, and the promotion of ugly food may help address this issue. According to cue utilization theory and the VAB model, the primary purpose of this research is to investigate the role of green packaging in ugly food with multiple internal and external cues. A conceptual model with eight hypotheses are proposed. Conclusion, contributions of study and research limitations are finally shown.

Food waste is a major sustainable development problem in the world, and the promotion of ugly food may help address this issue. According to cue utilization theory and the VAB model, the primary purpose of this research is to investigate the role of green packaging in ugly food with multiple internal and external cues. A conceptual model with eight hypotheses are proposed. Conclusion, contributions of study and research limitations are finally shown.

Healthy and environmentally friendly food is a subject of increasing prominence all around the world, and especially so in developing countries such as India, where consumption of agricultural goods produced in a sustainable environment with a low reliance on pesticides, antibiotics, hormones, and genetic manipulation is a real challenge. Consumer interest in green food items is increasing as safety and health concerns grow, and researchers are calling for further investigation of green food consumer behavior. Although a large number of research was done on environmental performance in industrialized countries, very little research has been conducted among Indian consumers. Furthermore, the gap between intention to consume green food products and actual behavior remains under-investigated. This gap can be investigated through the prism of theory of planned behavior (TPB). This theory has been widely used in green consumer studies: it seeks to explain how individuals make decisions and take actions based on their attitudes, beliefs, and perceived behavioral control. However, the TPB has not been extended to account for cultural values (i.e., Hofstede’s cultural framework), which can play an important role in shaping consumer attitudes and behaviors. Therefore, this research investigates the application of the extended TPB model in the context of green food products with a quantitative survey among Indian consumers (N=387). The results show that long-term (health) orientation and collectivism influence both green purchase intention and behavior. This effect is explained by subjective norms, perceived value, and environmental attitudes of the consumers.

Green product experience has become an important marketing strategy for corporations to tap potential green consumers. Based on the theory of planned behavior, this article explores the influence of attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control on consumers’ green purchasing intentions from the perspective of green product experience with consumers in China, Japan, and Korea as the research objects. Our findings suggest that green product experience of consumers in the three countries can directly affect consumers' green purchasing intentions. Green product experience has an indirect influence on consumers’ green purchasing intention through the mediating effect of attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control. The multiple group comparison shows the external validity of TPB through an examination of green purchasing behavior in different cultural settings, which will help enterprises implement effective experience marketing strategies.

Fashion companies and brands’ marketing activities focus on resolving environmental problems; however, these companies’ efforts, there are some examples of so-called “greenwashing”. This paper aims to analyze different perceptions of brand authenticity, green marketing, and purchase intention toward the brand before and after exposure to case information about greenwashing. A total of 211 data were gathered and analyzed using SPSS 25.0. Respondents were asked to respond to same questionnaires related to green marketing and the brand authenticity before and after their exposure to greenwashing information. The study participants’ perceptions of green marketing from the brand were statistically significantly negatively changed after exposure compared to before exposure. Similar patterns in results were found in the context of consumers’ perception of brand authenticity (genuineness, originality, and consistency), and purchase intention. The originality of this study is in evaluating consumers’ perception of greenwashing focused on brand authenticity. The findings of the study suggest that if a fashion brand’s green marketing activity is perceived as greenwashing by consumers, the perceptions of green marketing, brand authenticity, and purchase intention can all decline. It is suggested that fashion brands need to develop a sincere and truthful green marketing campaigns to keep and enhance their brand authenticity.

Consumer ethics (CE) is defined by Muncy and Vitell (1992) as the moral standards to guide consumers’ behaviors in obtaining and disposing of goods and services. Regarding ethical issues, consumers have concerns on human, animal or environmental welfare (Gregory-Smith, Smith, & Winklhofer, 2013). As Liu, Yang, and Zeng (2015) describe, unethical consumer behavior (UCB) may cause underlying damage to society, reflecting the dysfunctional, dark or sinister side of consumer behavior. In consumer ethics literature, early studies focus on discussing the dark side of consumer behavior or unethical consumer behavior (UCB), such as returning goods you damaged, taping a movie off the television, shoplifting, etc. (Vitell & Muncy, 2003), counterfeit consumption (Tang, Tian, & Zaichkowsky, 2014; Wilcox, Kim, & Sen, 2009). In last few decades, more attention has been given to the study of the bright side, for instance, green purchase (e.g., Lee, 2008 & 2009; Chan, 2008); sustainable consumption (Lee, 2014), or fair trade (Chatzidakis, Kastanakis, & Stathopoulou, 2016). Within the studies on the bright side of consumer ethics, some of them investigate consumers’ attitude towards green purchase and its relationship with green purchase intention and behavior (e.g., Chai & Chen, 2009; Chen & Chai, 2010; Cherian & Jacob, 2012; Han, Hsu, & Lee, 2009; Vermeir & Verbeke, 2006). Among these studies, the semantic-differential scale of attitudes towards green purchase (AGP) developed by Taylor and Todd (1995) is more commonly adopted (e.g., Chai & Chen, 2009; Chan, 2001, Chen & Chai, 2010; Mostafa, 2006 & 2007). This AGP scale contains three items, namely i) I dislike/like the idea of purchasing green products, ii) Purchasing green products is a bad/good idea, and iii) I have a/an unfavourable/favourable attitude towards purchasing a green version of a product. Some other studies on the bright side of consumer ethics investigate consumers’ intention to purchase different green products, such as organic skin/hair care product (Kim & Chung, 2011), organic food (Paul & Rana, 2012), the relationship between environmental concern and green products purchase (Kangun, Carlson, & Grove, 1991), ecologically packaged products purchase (Schwepker & Cornwell, 1991) or organic vegetables (Sparks & Shepherd, 1992). There are several green purchase intention (GPI) scales asking if respondents will buy product of green version, less polluting for ecology or environmental concern (Chan 2001; Chen & Chang, 2012; Taylor & Todd, 1995). Vitell and Muncy (2005) develop a consumer ethics scale with four categories of (un)ethical consumer behaviors, they are i) ethical consumer behaviors (i.e., recycling and doing good), ii) unethical consumer behaviors (i.e., actively benefiting from illegal activities [e.g., returning damaged goods when the damage was your own fault]; passively benefiting at the expense of others [e.g., lying about a child’s age to get a lower price], iii) questionable but generally legal practices [e.g., using a coupon for merchandise you did not buy], and iv) no harm/no foul activities [e.g., returning merchandise after buying it and not liking it]. In this scale, the ‘recycling’ and ‘doing good’ categories are similar to the Taylor and Todd’s (1995) AGP scale. It is quite surprising that there seems no research putting them together in studying green purchase intention. This conceptual paper attempts to fill this research gap. Conspicuous consumption, another type of consumption, also reveals some aspects of consumer ethics. It has been clearly defined that conspicuous consumption involves extravagant consumption (Veblen, 1899/1915), purchase of luxury goods (e.g., O’Cass & Frost, 2002; Shukla, 2008) or scarce products (Gierl & Huettl, 2010) to display wealth or to demonstrate personal taste (e.g., Blumer, 1969; Bourdieu, 1979/1984; Trigg, 2001). Extant literature illustrates that some terms are associated with conspicuous consumption behavior, such as ‘materialism’ (e.g., Podoshen, Li, & Zhang, 2011), ‘unnecessary expenses’ (e.g., Veblen (1899/1915), ‘conspicuous waste’ and ‘overconsumption’ (e.g., Carr, Gotlieb, Lee, and Shah, 2012; Chaudhuri, Mazumdar, & Ghoshal, 2011), ‘luxury consumption’ (Kwek & Lee, 2013), and ‘conspicuous taste’ (Bourdieu, 1979/1984). A relatively more complete scale of conspicuous consumption orientation developed by Chaudhuri et al. (2011) contains 12 items, which explicitly covers all items related to wealth, status and taste. With a closer look on the definition and the terms to describe conspicuous consumption, it is not hard to find out explicit remarks or implicit comments that various kinds of conspicuous consumption can be unethical, creating negative impacts in economical, socio-culturally and environmental contexts. First, conspicuous consumption can be a waste of economic resources. For instance, in conspicuous consumption feasting in Chinese communities, ordering more foods than enough would create wastes. Besides, conspicuous consumption is associated with impulse/impulsive buying (Zhang & Shrum, 2009). In modern economies with higher materialism, conspicuous consumption is highly related to expenditures of visible goods like high fashion clothing (O’Cass, 2001), jewelry, cars (Bloch, 1981; Charles, Hurst, & Roussanov, 2009), housing or mobile phones (Spero & Stone, 2004). Impulsive conspicuous consumption of new fashion in every season is another type of consumption creating more wastes. Second, conspicuous consumption can be harming to environment. For example, to demonstrate wealth or status, some people eat endangered species or killing wild animals, e.g., shark fin (Eriksson & Clarke, 2015), monkey or turtle. conspicuous consumption of clothing, ornaments or decorative items made of endangered species (e.g., ivory from elephant, skin from fox are also harming the nature. Given the ethical feature of conspicuous consumption is obvious, it is surprising that ethical issues of conspicuous consumption have yet been discussed prominently. Moreover, seldom of the studies in conspicuous consumption or CE discuss the bright side of conspicuous consumption. In fact, some types of consumption can be ethical and conspicuous. For instance, Griskevicius, Tybur, and Van den Bergh (2010), when they study conspicuous conservation, they prove that status competition can help promote pro-environmental behavior. Alike, Sexton and Sexton (2014) reveal the green buying of energy saving vehicles. There are in fact more examples of ethical and conspicuous consumption, like consumption of eco-friendly clothing, accessories or dining, etc. In this regard, if there are more conspicuous and green consumptions, e.g., eco-friendly vehicles, decoration material, clothing or cuisines, conspicuous consumption can facilitate the development of a greener and harmonious societies on the contrary. Nowadays, amid the proliferation of environmental protection ideology, more consumers are willing to have green purchase. If the purchases are also ‘socially visible’, we may call them as ‘conspicuous green purchase’. Following this logic, if consumers have a higher tendency in consumer ethics and conspicuous consumption, they may have a higher green purchase intention (GPI). This proposition may be particularly valid for branded fashion, visible consumer electronics, or vehicles. In conspicuous GPI, consumers can show off their wealth, fashion taste and conservation virtue through displaying green products or green purchase publicly. Recently, a sustainable consumption report published by the Consumer Council in Hong Kong (Consumer Council, 2016) reveals that Hong Kong people has a high level of awareness and purchase intention of sustainable products, but they have a low level in action taking. In this regard, perhaps, the conspicuousness in the consumption of green products can be an additional motivation to enhance consumers' purchase intention. Surprisingly, there seems no research to explore to find out the mediating effect of conspicuous consumption on the relationship between AGP and GPI. This conceptual paper tries to fill this research gap. To sum, this conceptual paper aims to explore the relationship between these four constructs, attitudes towards green purchase (AGP), consumer ethics (CE), conspicuous consumption (CC) and conspicuous green purchase intention (CGPI). More specifically, this paper tries to examine the mediating effects of CE or CC on the relationship between AGP and CGPI. Considering the discussion above, the following propositions are generated. P1: A person with positive AGP tends to have a higher CGPI than a person with negative AGP. P2: A person with a higher CE orientation (recycling and doing good) and positive AGP tends to have a higher CGPI than a person with a lower CE orientation. P3: A person with a higher CC orientation and positive AGP tends to have a higher CGPI than a person with a lower CE orientation. This conceptual paper has both theoretical and practical implications. It helps integrate four constructs, namely attitudes towards green purchase, consumer ethics, conspicuous consumption and green purchase intention in one study, building better theories in these areas. This paper also helps marketers of green products to pay more attention to the market segment that consumers are both ethical and conspicuous consumption oriented, hence conveying more appropriate promotion messages and selecting right channels of distribution. Finally, more green purchase would help us to make better societies with higher moral standard in consumption.

The study aims to assess factors affecting intention to purchase green products in Vietnam. The study employs samples from customers who have actually experienced green consumption in Vietnam. The samples were collected by convenient sampling methods. The survey obtained 206 responses with full information. The survey was conducted from October 2019 to January 2020. The measurement scale was a 5-point scale with 1- completely disagree and 5- strongly agree. This study employs factor analysis and structural equation modelling analysis. The results showed that the social and environment sustainability awareness have positive effects on altruism of customers who are interested in green consumption. Altruism also has the same direction on green purchase intention. Besides, the attitude toward buying green and health consciousness affects green purchase intention. At the same time, the altruism and attitude towards buying green products also influence positively on green purchase intention. Besides, the health consciousness positively affects attitude towards buying green products. The results show that the health consciousness has a negative impact on intention to purchase green products. The findings suggest that it is necessary to raise customers' health consciousness, customers' altruism from disseminating knowledge about environmental protection as well as society to enhance the green consumption in Vietnam.