The research is grounded in the Theory of Planned Behavior, one of the most widely used frameworks in environmental psychology. Developed by Icek Ajzen, the theory holds that human actions are best predicted by three proximal factors: attitudes toward the behavior, subjective norms, which capture perceived social expectations, and perceived behavioral control, which reflects how easy or difficult a person believes the behavior to be. In this study, the authors extended the classic triad with three additional constructs: environmental knowledge, sources of information, and environmental behavior. The central question was whether these extensions could explain a financially consequential intention, namely the willingness to pay for sustainability, in a developing-country higher-education context where such evidence has been scarce.

Methodologically, the study is a cross-sectional quantitative investigation. Data were gathered from 440 students enrolled at three private universities in Dhaka using structured questionnaires. The analysis pipeline was unusually thorough for a behavioral survey of this kind. The researchers began with preliminary ordinal association tests to check for baseline relationships among variables, then moved to confirmatory factor analysis to verify that the survey items genuinely measured the intended constructs. The heart of the analysis was covariance-based structural equation modeling, a statistical technique that allows researchers to test an entire network of hypothesized cause-and-effect pathways simultaneously rather than one relationship at a time. Mediation analysis was then used to trace whether some variables influence willingness to pay indirectly through others.

Because self-reported survey data are vulnerable to artifacts, the team also ran a battery of validity diagnostics. These included an assessment of common method bias, the risk that correlations arise simply because all answers come from the same respondents at the same time; the HTMT ratio, a modern criterion for checking that conceptually distinct constructs are statistically distinguishable; a cross-loading examination to confirm that each survey item loads most strongly on its own factor; and a statistical power evaluation to ensure the sample size was adequate to detect the effects being tested. This layered approach matters, because findings in consumer behavior research are only as credible as the measurement and modeling safeguards behind them.

The results paint a coherent picture. Sources of information, meaning the channels through which students encounter environmental content, were positively associated with both environmental knowledge and environmental attitudes. In other words, students who are exposed to more and better sustainability information know more about environmental issues and feel more favorably toward pro-environmental action. This finding positions information channels as the upstream infrastructure of the entire psychological chain: before attitudes can form and intentions can crystallize, someone or something has to deliver the relevant knowledge.

Downstream, the study found that environmental behavior, subjective norms, attitudes, and perceived behavioral control all significantly predicted willingness to pay for sustainability. Each of these factors carried independent statistical weight. Students who already acted in environmentally responsible ways, who felt that people around them expected sustainable conduct, who held positive attitudes toward environmental protection, and who believed they had the capacity and opportunity to act sustainably were all more willing to spend money on sustainability. The fact that environmental behavior itself predicted willingness to pay suggests a self-reinforcing loop: practicing sustainability in daily life appears to build a disposition that extends to financial commitments.

The authors are careful about the limits of their model. They describe the extended Theory of Planned Behavior as a useful, though not perfectly fitting, explanation of sustainability-related financial intentions in their sample. This honesty is scientifically important. Behavioral models rarely capture every source of variance in human decisions, and a model that fits acceptably rather than perfectly still provides actionable leverage. In this case, the actionable levers are clear: improve the quality and reach of environmental information, cultivate positive attitudes through education, harness peer and social norms, and strengthen students’ sense of behavioral control.

The context of the study gives these findings particular weight. Bangladesh is one of the countries most exposed to climate change, facing sea-level rise, cyclones, flooding, and severe urban pollution, yet research on sustainability-related consumer psychology in its higher-education sector has been limited. Private university students in Dhaka represent a segment of the population with purchasing power and future leadership roles in business and policy. Understanding what drives their willingness to pay for sustainability therefore has implications far beyond campus boundaries. Prior studies cited in the paper have examined green fees on campuses, willingness to pay for green buildings, carbon offsets, and sustainable food, but context-specific evidence from developing-country universities has remained thin, a gap this study directly addresses.

The findings also connect to a broader international literature on environmental education. Research from Portugal, China, Indonesia, and elsewhere has repeatedly shown that environmental knowledge shapes attitudes, which in turn shape behavior, but the knowledge-action gap, the frequent disconnect between what people know and what they do, remains a persistent puzzle. By demonstrating that information sources feed both knowledge and attitudes, and that actual behavior feeds financial willingness, the Bangladeshi study suggests that interventions should target multiple points in the chain simultaneously rather than relying on knowledge alone. Sustainability curricula, campus campaigns, and media exposure may each contribute differently, and the study’s mediation framework offers a template for evaluating which pathways matter most in a given setting.

For policymakers and university administrators, the practical message is that willingness to pay for sustainability is buildable. It grows when students receive credible environmental information, when their social circles normalize sustainable choices, when their attitudes are shaped by engaging education, and when they experience the confidence that comes from acting sustainably in everyday life. For researchers, the study demonstrates that an extended Theory of Planned Behavior, validated with confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation modeling, and rigorous bias diagnostics, can travel successfully into a developing-country context and yield interpretable, actionable results. As universities worldwide grapple with how to finance greener campuses and as young consumers increasingly face sustainability-labeled choices in the marketplace, evidence about what makes students willing to pay, and what merely makes them nod in agreement, has never been more valuable.

Subject of Research: Determinants of university students' willingness to pay for sustainability in Bangladesh

Article Title: Determinants of students’ willingness to pay for sustainability in Bangladesh

Article References: Imran, S. A., Mahbub, S. B., & Weerasinghe, C. K. (2026). Determinants of students’ willingness to pay for sustainability in Bangladesh. SN Social Sciences, 6(10), Article 527. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43545-026-01825-7

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s43545-026-01825-7

Keywords: willingness to pay, sustainability, Theory of Planned Behavior, environmental knowledge, environmental behavior, higher education, Bangladesh, consumer behavior, environmental attitudes, structural equation modeling, environmental education, subjective norms

The research, published in the open-access journal Heliyon by Kim Quoc Trung Nguyen of Ho Chi Minh City Open University, surveyed 375 Vietnamese online shoppers who had previously bought green or eco-friendly products over the internet. Using a statistical technique known as partial least squares structural equation modeling, or PLS-SEM, the study tested a single integrated model of how environmental stimuli on e-commerce platforms are converted into the intention to buy. The results, the author argues, overturn a comfortable assumption of digital marketing: that engagement with green content automatically breeds green purchasing.

The theoretical backbone of the study is the stimulus–organism–response framework, a classic model of environmental psychology that traces a causal chain from external cues to internal states to behavior. In this case, the stimuli are four features of the green e-commerce environment: green perceived value, meaning the environmental and personal benefits a consumer believes a product delivers; eco-brand credibility, the trustworthiness of a brand’s environmental claims; mobile shopping experience, the quality and usability of the shopping app itself; and platform sustainability features, such as eco-labels, green filters, and transparent environmental information. The “organism” in the middle of the chain is digital engagement behavior, the reading, commenting, sharing, and recommending of green content online. The “response” is online shopping intention.

What the model found was strikingly consistent. All four stimuli were positively and significantly associated with digital engagement, and all four were also directly associated with purchase intention. Green perceived value showed the strongest pull toward engagement, with a path coefficient of 0.334, followed closely by mobile shopping experience at 0.323 and eco-brand credibility at 0.322. Platform sustainability features, at 0.287, were also robust, and notably carried the largest direct effect on intention among the four, suggesting that visible cues like eco-labels and green filtering tools do more than invite interaction; they reduce the uncertainty that surrounds environmental claims, which consumers often cannot verify before a parcel arrives.

Digital engagement itself did predict purchase intention, but only weakly. Its direct path coefficient was a modest 0.163, with a small effect size of 0.052. In plain terms, people who read, discuss, and share green content online are somewhat more likely to intend to buy green products, but engagement alone explains little. The study interprets engagement instead as a transmission mechanism, a bridge that carries evaluations of value, trust, and experience toward intention, rather than an engine that drives purchasing by itself. The model explained 51 percent of the variance in digital engagement and a substantial 75.3 percent of the variance in online shopping intention, but the interaction terms, not the engagement pathway, accounted for much of that explanatory power.

Those interaction terms are the heart of the paper. The author tested two consumer competencies as moderators of the engagement-to-intention link: digital literacy, the ability to find, evaluate, and use online information, and environmental knowledge, the understanding of environmental facts and the ecological consequences of consumption. Both strengthened the relationship, but environmental knowledge did so more powerfully. The interaction between engagement and environmental knowledge produced an effect size of 0.810, classified as large, while the digital literacy interaction produced 0.623, also large but clearly smaller. The corresponding path coefficients were 0.453 and 0.377 respectively, both highly significant.

The simple-slope analysis makes the pattern vivid. When environmental knowledge was high, one standard deviation above the mean, the effect of engagement on intention was strongly positive, with a slope of 0.616. At average knowledge levels the slope was 0.163. But when knowledge was low, the slope turned significantly negative, at minus 0.290. The same reversal appeared for digital literacy, with slopes of 0.540, 0.163, and minus 0.214 at high, mean, and low levels. In other words, for consumers lacking these competencies, more engagement with green content was actually associated with less intention to buy, a result the author links to the elaboration likelihood model, in which the ability to process information centrally determines whether persuasion succeeds.

Why would knowledge matter more than digital skill? The author’s answer is that the two competencies operate at different levels of specificity. Digital literacy is instrumental and domain-general: it helps people navigate interfaces, assess reviews, and adapt to new apps. Environmental knowledge is value-laden and sustainability-specific: it enables consumers to judge whether a green claim is credible, to recognize greenwashing, and to align a purchase with their own environmental principles. A digitally fluent shopper can scroll effortlessly through eco-marketing without ever asking whether the claims are true. A knowledgeable shopper asks that question first, and the answer determines whether engagement ripens into a purchase.

The Vietnamese setting adds an important layer of interpretation. The country’s e-commerce market has grown among the fastest in Southeast Asia since the pandemic, with platforms such as Shopee, Lazada, Tiki, and TikTok Shop becoming mainstay shopping channels, particularly for young, mobile-first consumers. In such a market, stimulating engagement with green content is comparatively easy; the harder task is converting that engagement into sustainable purchasing, which depends on whether consumers can critically evaluate environmental information. The author cautions that in more mature green markets, where formal certification systems and established eco-labels carry more institutional weight, individual environmental knowledge may play a less dominant role, so the findings should be generalized carefully.

The practical implications are concrete. Platforms and sellers, the study suggests, should invest in transparent, specific, and consistent environmental information, including clear eco-labels and user-friendly green filters, to counter the skepticism that greenwashing breeds. They should also design digital experiences that genuinely foster engagement, since engagement remains a meaningful pathway even if it is not sufficient on its own. Most importantly, businesses and policymakers should treat consumer competencies as strategic infrastructure: educational initiatives that build environmental knowledge and digital literacy will, on this evidence, do more to convert clicks into sustainable purchases than any amount of promotional content alone. The study’s limitations, a convenience sample, cross-sectional self-reported data, and a single national context, mean the results are associative rather than causal, but the central message stands: in green e-commerce, what consumers know shapes what engagement is worth.

Subject of Research: The role of digital engagement, digital literacy, and environmental knowledge in green consumer purchase intention in Vietnamese e-commerce

Article Title: Green consumer behavior in e-commerce: The mediating role of digital engagement and the moderating effects of literacy and environmental knowledge

Article References: Nguyen, K. Q. T. (2026). Green consumer behavior in e-commerce: The mediating role of digital engagement and the moderating effects of literacy and environmental knowledge. Heliyon, 12(15), Article e45511. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2026.e45511

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2026.e45511

Keywords: green consumer behavior, e-commerce, digital engagement, digital literacy, environmental knowledge, sustainable consumption, PLS-SEM, greenwashing, Vietnam, online shopping intention, eco-labels, consumer psychology