Consumers’ interests in the environment have been growing; hence, their consciousness about the environment has changed and affected their clothing shopping behavior. Prior study indicated attitude-behavior inconsistency in eco-friendly consumer behavior. It was because consumers’ consciousness or attitude was often measured at an abstract level, not at a product specific level. This study investigated eco-friendly clothing knowledge, eco-friendly clothing consciousness, and ecological clothing consumption behavior. The effects of consumers’ level of clothing involvement and subjective norms in this process were also investigated. For the empirical research, a questionnaire was developed, and responses from 480 women in their 20s to 50s were statistically analyzed. Results indicated that interest and fashion consciousness dimensions of clothing involvement had a significant influence on ecofriendly clothing knowledge, which thereby significantly influenced the three factors of eco-friendly clothing consciousness: social responsibility, health orientation, and clothing resource-saving consciousness. Such factors had different roles in the clothing consumption process. Social responsibility had a significant influence on the entire process of clothing consumption: shopping, purchasing, using, and disposing behaviors. Health orientation consciousness had a significant influence on shopping and purchasing behaviors, whereas resource-saving consciousness had a significant impact only on shopping behavior. Subjective norms were significantly correlated with all aspects of the clothing consumption process. Influence on disposing behavior was relatively weaker than other aspects of clothing consumption behavior.

Conflicting accounts of environmentally-friendly motives exist (see Chan, 2001; Hartmann & Apaolaza-Ibanez, 2012; Haws et al., 2014; Johnstone & Tan, 2015; Rashid, 2009; Royne et al., 2013). Recent research has turned to identity-society explanations (see Park & Lee, 2016). This research furthers this inquiry and narrows the gap. To understand environmentally-friendly clothing options (EFCO) motives better, this study uses uniqueness theory, which posits that consumers adopt dress different from mass fashion simply because it is unpopular (Snyder & Fromkin, 1977; Tian et al., 2001). Accordingly, environmentally-friendly attitudes should have nothing to do with the environment, but with norms, conformity, pressure (Law et al., 2004), and uniqueness. Thus, the research questions consist of: 1) is need for uniqueness in dress related to EFCO purchase intentions? 2) If so, does uniqueness relate to other EFCO motives? A survey was administered (n=220), using existing scales, to an online consumer panel All scales exhibited sufficient reliability. Pearson-Product Moment Scores and ANOVAs were used to assess variable relationships. As predicted, concern for the environment and perceived individual impact on the environment were unrelated to need for uniqueness. There was a significant and positive relationship between need for uniqueness and each of: attitudes toward EFCO and social pressure to act green. This indicates that individuals feel social pressure from important others to adapt to consumer trends. However, the manner in which they adopt mass consumer movements, such as sustainability, may be in more unique ways and via unpopular choice, such as EFCO. Finally, an ANOVA indicated that those high in uniqueness were willing to pay substantially more for EFCO.

This study was executed to deduce the factors affecting eco-friendly behaviors and attitudes, to analyse the difference of eco-friendly behaviors and attitudes between countries, and to draw the variables affecting clothing recycling behavior. The sample comprised people from the UK, China, South Korea. The results were as follows. The four factors related to eco-friendly behaviors and the five factors related to eco-friendly attitudes were derived from the results of factor analysis. In the case of eco-friendly behaviors, four eco-friendly behavior factors showed a significant difference all according to gender and country. In the case of eco-friendly attitudes, saving of natural resources for eco-friendly life, recycling for eco-friendly life, and individual preference for eco-friendly life showed a significant according to gender, also recycling for eco-friendly life, individual preference for eco-friendly life, social awareness for eco-friendly life, and company’s awareness for eco-friendly life showed a significant difference according to country. All of the variables related to clothing recycling behaviors showed the significant difference according to gender and countries. It was verified that the stronger the behaviors or attitudes for waste recycling and environmental protection, individual preference for eco-friendly life, saving of natural resources, buying eco-friendly products, and separate collection for recycling, the more positive the action to clothing recycling. The results of this study will be helpful to establish a marketing strategy for each country and to deduce a plan to attract clothing recycling form people.

The purposes of this study were to identify awareness of pollution and attitudes toward eco-friendly clothing according to women's LOHAS lifestyle. Over 60% of women were not aware of severity of environment pollution by clothing wastes and 37.2% kept their not-wearing clothing in dead storage. 26.7% of women disposed notwearing clothing into clothing collecting box separately and 20.9% sent them to neighbors or friends. 39.4% of women were willing to pay 10% more for eco-friendly clothing and 84.6% were not willing to buy clothing produced by unethical companies. Factors of LOHAS lifestyle were healthy food, environmental protection, family life, healthy clothing, healthy housing, and community service, and were segmented into using leisure group, family centered group, LOHAS group, and LOHAS stagnated group. Using leisure group were university women with low incomes, well aware of environmental pollution by clothing wastes and eco-friendly clothing, kept their not-wearing clothing into dead storage, and low intention to buy clothing produced by unethical companies. Family centered group were women of 30’s with average income and higher educationl, unaware of environmental pollution by clothing wastes and eco-friendly clothing, but low intention to buying them, disposed not-wearing clothing into clothing collecting box. LOHAS group were the over forties home makers with higher income and education, well aware of severity of environmental pollution, sent not-wearing clothing to others or remodeled, intended to buy eco-friendly clothing, and not to buy clothing produced by unethical companies. LOHAS stagnated group were university students, unaware of severity of environmental pollution by clothing wastes and threw not-wearing clothing into trash box, no experience of eco-friendly clothing, could buy clothing produced by unethical companies if needed.