The researchers started from a well-established idea in consumer psychology: perceived risk theory. Since the 1960s, scholars have recognized that buyers do not simply weigh benefits; they also mentally simulate everything that could go wrong. A purchase can fail financially, functionally, socially, or psychologically, and the anticipation of those failures shapes decisions just as powerfully as any advertised advantage. What Sobhanifard and Molavi suspected was that green products carry an unusually heavy load of such perceived risks — risks that traditional models of sustainable consumption have tended to underestimate or ignore. If consumers hesitate at the shelf, the hesitation may have less to do with weak environmental values and more to do with a private, often unspoken calculus of what they stand to lose.

To test that idea, the team built a mixed-methods design that unfolded in three stages. First, they conducted a systematic review of the existing literature on green consumption and perceived risk, combing through prior studies to assemble a candidate list of risk factors. Second, they interviewed nine experts in the field and applied thematic analysis to those conversations, refining and expanding the list until it captured the full landscape of consumer anxieties. The result was a set of 21 distinct perceived risk factors — a far more granular taxonomy than the handful of risk categories found in classic textbooks. The factors ranged from the familiar, such as higher purchase price and doubts about product quality, to the subtle and rarely studied, such as the fear of being seen as a show-off for buying green, or the anxiety of not being able to explain a product’s environmental features to friends and family.

The third stage moved from theory to measurement. The researchers administered a structured questionnaire to 642 consumers in Iran, asking each respondent to rate, on a scale from 1 to 10, how strongly every one of the 21 factors discouraged them from purchasing green products. The questionnaire was deliberately concrete: rather than asking abstract questions about environmental concern, it asked about specific worries — whether a brand’s claims seemed believable, whether after-sales service and repairs would be adequate, whether the product might trigger health problems, whether buying it would demand extra time and effort spent comparing options and researching credentials. Respondents also reported demographic details and the share of household purchasing decisions they personally controlled, allowing the researchers to anchor their risk ratings in real shopping roles.

When the survey data came back, the team applied Exploratory Factor Analysis, a statistical technique that searches for hidden structure in a cloud of correlated variables. The analysis revealed that the 21 risk factors were not an undifferentiated list; they clustered into four underlying dimensions. The first, labeled Personal Factors, gathered the intimate, self-directed worries — including a construct the authors introduce as internal failure feeling, the anxiety, disappointment, or loss of self-esteem a buyer anticipates after a purchase goes wrong. The second dimension, Information and Trust, captured doubts about the credibility of product claims, the reliability of brands, and the honesty of green marketing, including the ever-present specter of greenwashing. The third, Environmental Assurance, reflected uncertainty about whether green products genuinely deliver on their ecological promises, from recyclable packaging to verifiable environmental performance. The fourth, Quality Expectations and Purchase Value, bundled concerns about durability, performance, limited variety, unfashionable design, and the nagging sense that a green product might simply be worse than its conventional rival.

Ranking the risks was where the study made its most distinctive methodological move. Instead of relying on regression coefficients or expert judgment alone, the researchers turned to Random Forest, a machine-learning algorithm that builds hundreds of decision trees on random subsets of the data and aggregates their predictions. Random Forest is prized for its robustness and for its ability to quantify the relative importance of each input variable, even when variables interact in nonlinear ways — exactly the situation one expects when psychological, social, and financial worries combine to influence a single purchase decision. Running the algorithm on the survey responses produced a clear hierarchy of barriers, and the six most influential risk factors emerged as internal failure feeling, unreliable information, brand distrust, additional effort, low variety and not being fashionable, and lack of reliable organizations and certifications.

Several of these findings deserve close attention. The top-ranked factor, internal failure feeling, is a novel construct in the green consumption literature, and its prominence suggests that the emotional stakes of buying green are higher than most models assume. A consumer who pays a premium for an eco-friendly product and then feels let down does not merely lose money; the authors suggest the buyer may experience a personal sense of failure, a wound to self-image that makes future green purchases even less likely. Equally striking is the weight placed on trust-related risks. Unreliable information and brand distrust ranked second and third, and the absence of credible certifications and verification organizations ranked sixth. In an environment saturated with vague environmental claims, consumers appear to be making a rational response: when they cannot verify a product’s green credentials, they default to skepticism, and skepticism kills the sale.

The remaining top barriers point to friction in the shopping experience itself. Additional effort — the extra time and energy needed to find, compare, and research green alternatives — acts as a silent tax on sustainable choices, one that conventional products do not impose. And the perception that green products offer low variety and lag behind current fashion suggests that sustainability still carries an aesthetic penalty in consumers’ minds, a stereotype that better design and marketing could directly attack. Together, the six barriers sketch a portrait of the hesitant green consumer: not indifferent to the environment, but wary of being deceived, disappointed, embarrassed, or exhausted by the act of buying responsibly.

The study’s implications extend well beyond Iran, even though its empirical base is a single national sample of 642 consumers — a limitation the authors’ framework does not erase, and one reason readers should treat the specific rankings as a hypothesis to be tested in other markets rather than a universal law. Still, the practical recipe that emerges is concrete. Policymakers could narrow the trust gap by establishing and enforcing credible certification schemes, so that a green label on a package means something a shopper can verify. Manufacturers could reduce internal failure feelings by guaranteeing performance and offering money-back protections, and could shrink the effort barrier by making green options easier to find and compare. Marketers, meanwhile, face the most delicate task: rebuilding brand credibility in a marketplace where exaggerated claims have taught consumers to doubt. The green gap, this research suggests, will not close through more appeals to conscience. It will close when buying green stops feeling like a gamble.

Subject of Research: Perceived risk factors in sustainable consumption and the green gap between consumer intentions and purchasing behavior

Article Title: Bridging the green gap through understanding the role of perceived risks in sustainable consumption decisions

Article References: Sobhanifard, Y., & Molavi, R. (2026). Bridging the green gap through understanding the role of perceived risks in sustainable consumption decisions. Discover Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43621-026-04767-5

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s43621-026-04767-5

Keywords: green gap, perceived risk, sustainable consumption, green products, consumer behavior, greenwashing, Random Forest, exploratory factor analysis, brand trust, environmental psychology, green certifications, purchase decisions

The research, conducted by Bui Huy Khoi of the Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, set out to disentangle the psychological machinery that connects sustainability perceptions to buying decisions in the cosmetics sector. Rather than asking consumers directly whether they intend to buy green products, the study built a structural model in which four sustainability-related factors, green attitude, green subjective norms, perceived behavioural control and green advertising, were tested for their influence on brand trust, which in turn was tested as a driver of purchase intention. The design reflects a growing recognition in consumer psychology that intentions are rarely shaped by attitudes alone; they are mediated by layers of belief, social context and confidence in the seller.

Methodologically, the study took a mixed-methods approach. In the first, qualitative phase, the researcher refined and contextualised the measurement scales, ensuring that the survey instruments captured what green attitude, social pressure, control and advertising genuinely mean to cosmetics consumers in an emerging market rather than importing constructs wholesale from Western literature. In the second, quantitative phase, survey data were analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling, or PLS-SEM, a statistical technique well suited to testing networks of hypothesised relationships between latent psychological variables. PLS-SEM estimates how strongly each construct predicts the next, allowing the researcher to quantify both direct effects and the indirect, mediated pathways that run through brand trust.

The results are striking in their asymmetry. Three of the four sustainability factors, green attitude, perceived behavioural control and green advertising, exerted a significant positive impact on brand trust. In plain terms, consumers who hold favourable dispositions toward environmentally friendly products, who feel capable of actually choosing and using green cosmetics, and who are exposed to credible green advertising, come to trust the brands behind those products. That trust then carries the weight: brand trust mediated the relationship between all three of these factors and purchase intention, acting as the bridge between what consumers believe about sustainability and what they decide to buy.

The fourth factor, however, refused to cooperate. Green subjective norms, the perceived social pressure from family, friends and reference groups to buy sustainable products, showed no statistically significant influence within the model. This null result is arguably the most provocative finding in the paper. Much of the classical literature on pro-environmental behaviour, rooted in the theory of planned behaviour, treats subjective norms as a core pillar of intention formation. The study’s finding suggests that, at least among the young, digitally engaged consumers surveyed in this emerging-market setting, the decision to buy green cosmetics is not primarily a social conformity play. People are not buying sustainable lipstick because their friends approve; they are buying it because they trust the brand and feel personally able to make the choice.

Why would social norms fail while personal attitudes and perceived control succeed? One plausible reading, consistent with the study’s framing, is that cosmetics are a highly personal, identity-laden product category. Choices about skin, scent and appearance are made at the level of the individual mirror, not the dinner table. In a digital-first consumer environment, information about a brand’s environmental credentials arrives through advertising and online content rather than through face-to-face social endorsement, which may weaken the channel through which subjective norms traditionally operate. The author is careful to caution, however, that this pattern should not be interpreted as broadly generalizable across consumer segments or markets; norms may matter far more in other cultures, age groups or product categories.

The mediation finding deserves particular attention because it reframes how sustainability marketing works. If green attitudes and green advertising influenced purchase intention directly, the managerial prescription would be simple: make consumers feel positive and keep advertising. But the model shows that these factors work on intention largely through trust. Sustainability perceptions are, in effect, an input into a trust-building process, and trust is the currency that gets spent at the checkout. This has a sobering implication for an industry plagued by greenwashing accusations. When a brand’s environmental claims are perceived as exaggerated or false, the damage is not confined to the credibility of the claim itself; it corrodes the very mechanism through which all sustainability messaging converts into sales.

For managers, the study’s practical message is pointed. In this specific context, building trust through credible green communication and enhancing consumers’ perceived behavioural control may be more effective than relying on social influence mechanisms. Credible communication means verifiable claims, transparency about ingredients and sourcing, and advertising that can withstand scrutiny rather than vague eco-imagery. Enhancing perceived control means lowering the practical barriers to green choices: clear labelling, accessible price points, easy availability and product performance that matches conventional alternatives. A consumer who believes a green cosmetic will work, can find it easily and can afford it is a consumer positioned to trust the brand behind it, and trust is what converts belief into a purchase.

The study also contributes to a broader scholarly conversation about emerging markets. Much of the sustainability marketing literature has been built on data from Europe, North America and developed East Asia, where environmental awareness has had decades to mature. Emerging markets present a different landscape: rapidly growing middle classes, younger demographics, high digital engagement and environmental concerns that often arrive alongside, rather than after, mass consumption. Understanding how green perceptions function in such settings matters not only for the cosmetics industry but for any sector betting that the next generation of consumers will pay for sustainability. The finding that trust, not social pressure, is the pivotal variable offers a testable hypothesis for researchers working in other emerging-market contexts.

There are, of course, limits to what any single survey-based model can establish. Structural equation modelling identifies associations consistent with a theoretical pathway; it cannot prove causation in the experimental sense, and the study’s own author flags that the limited role of subjective norms in this sample should not be over-read. The sample’s composition, young and digitally engaged consumers, means the findings may not extend to older shoppers or to markets where green consumption follows different social dynamics. Still, the study’s contribution is clear and well-earned: it clarifies the relative importance of selected green factors in shaping brand trust and, indirectly, purchase intention, and it elevates trust from a vague buzzword to a measurable, mediating mechanism. In an industry where green claims multiply faster than the evidence behind them, that is a finding worth trusting.

Subject of Research: The effect of sustainability perceptions and brand trust on purchase intention for green cosmetics

Article Title: Sustainability, brand trust, and purchase intent in the cosmetics industry

Article References: Khoi, B. H. (2026). Sustainability, brand trust, and purchase intent in the cosmetics industry. Discover Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43621-026-04845-8

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s43621-026-04845-8

Keywords: sustainability marketing, brand trust, purchase intention, green advertising, green attitude, perceived behavioural control, subjective norms, cosmetics industry, PLS-SEM, consumer behaviour, greenwashing, emerging markets