The study, led by Rajan Shrestha of Aarhus University and the Nepal Development Society, forms part of a growing effort to correct a stubborn imbalance in global health evidence. Physical inactivity and prolonged sedentary behaviour are rising public health concerns across low- and middle-income countries, where non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer are climbing steeply. Yet most of what researchers know about the environmental and psychological drivers of activity comes from high-income countries, and much of it rests on questionnaires that ask people to recall and report their own behaviour, a method notoriously prone to bias and error.

To sidestep those limitations, the researchers turned to objective measurement. They analysed data from 421 adults who had taken part in the Community-Based Promotion of Physical Activity trial in Pokhara Metropolitan City. Each participant wore an Axivity AX3 accelerometer on the wrist continuously for seven days, providing minute-by-minute records of movement and stillness. The device captures acceleration in three dimensions, from which researchers derive measures such as the Euclidean Norm Minus One, a standard metric for quantifying overall body movement intensity. From these raw signals, the team calculated daily moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, the intensity level most strongly linked to health benefits, as well as total sedentary time.

Alongside the sensor data, participants completed structured questionnaires covering two distinct categories of environmental opportunity. The first, described as recreational or built opportunities, captures features familiar from urban planning literature in wealthy countries: parks, playgrounds, walking paths, gyms and other purpose-built facilities for leisure-time exercise. The second, productive or utilitarian opportunities, reflects a different reality: whether the surrounding environment supports movement as a by-product of daily life, such as walking to markets, shops, workplaces or services. The team also measured psychosocial factors drawn from the Theory of Planned Behaviour, a widely used psychological framework, including intention to be active and perceived behavioural control, the confidence a person feels in their own ability to act.

Because participants were recruited through community clusters, the researchers used multilevel linear mixed-effects models with random intercepts for clusters, a statistical approach that accounts for the fact that people living in the same neighbourhood share characteristics and cannot be treated as fully independent observations. This matters enormously in studies of built environments: ignoring clustering can produce misleadingly confident estimates. The models estimated associations between environmental and psychosocial factors and two outcomes, daily moderate-to-vigorous physical activity and sedentary time, and the team added interaction terms to test whether perceived behavioural control modified the environmental effects.

The headline result is striking for what it reveals about the geography of movement. Productive and utilitarian environmental opportunities, the everyday infrastructure that lets people accomplish necessary tasks on foot, showed stronger associations with device-measured moderate-to-vigorous activity than recreational or built features did. In the model that considered the environment alone, higher productive or utilitarian opportunity was linked to more daily moderate-to-vigorous activity. However, when the researchers added psychosocial factors into a combined model, these environmental associations were attenuated, suggesting that part of the apparent environmental effect travels through, or overlaps with, psychological and motivational characteristics of individuals.

One psychological factor refused to fade. Perceived behavioural control remained positively and robustly associated with moderate-to-vigorous physical activity even after adjustment, with an estimated coefficient of 34.35 and a 95 percent confidence interval running from 6.98 to 61.72. In practical terms, adults who felt more capable of being active accumulated meaningfully more device-measured activity each day. Intention, by contrast, showed no clear association with measured behaviour, a finding that will resonate with anyone who has resolved to exercise and then not done so. The gap between intending and acting is a central puzzle of behavioural science, and this dataset from Nepal adds a low- and middle-income country data point to a debate dominated by Western samples.

Sedentary time told a subtler story. Environmental associations with sitting and stillness were weaker and less consistent than those with activity, but the interaction analysis produced one notable result: among people in the highest tertile of productive or utilitarian environmental opportunity, higher perceived behavioural control was associated with less sedentary time, with an interaction coefficient of −35.26 minutes and a confidence interval from −64.92 to −5.61. The interpretation is intriguing. Environments rich in utilitarian movement opportunities may only translate into less sitting for people who feel confident in their ability to act on those opportunities, hinting that environmental and psychological levers work together rather than independently.

The authors caution, appropriately, that this is a cross-sectional analysis. It captures a single moment in time and cannot establish whether environments shape behaviour, whether active people choose more supportive environments, or whether some third factor drives both. Reverse causation is a live possibility: someone who already enjoys walking may perceive their neighbourhood as more walkable. The sample, drawn from participants in an existing physical activity promotion trial in one metropolitan area, may also not represent all of semi-urban Nepal. Still, the use of objective accelerometry over a full week, the multilevel design and the explicit separation of recreational from productive environmental opportunity make this one of the more methodologically careful studies of its kind in South Asia.

The implications stretch well beyond Pokhara. Cities across Asia and Africa are urbanising at unprecedented speed, and the design choices made in the next two decades will lock in patterns of movement or stillness for generations. If the findings hold, they suggest that in rapidly urbanising low- and middle-income countries, promoting physical activity may depend less on importing the gym-and-park model of wealthy nations and more on preserving and strengthening the everyday, utilitarian movement woven into daily life, while simultaneously building residents’ confidence that they can act. Interventions that pair walkable markets, services and workplaces with behavioural support targeting perceived control could do double duty. As non-communicable diseases rise across the Global South, this study offers a timely reminder that the most powerful exercise prescription may already be written into the streets people walk every day, provided they believe they can follow it.

Subject of Research: Environmental and psychosocial determinants of device-measured physical activity and sedentary behaviour among adults in semi-urban Nepal

Article Title: Environmental and psychosocial contexts of device-measured physical activity and sedentary behaviour in semi-urban Nepal: a multilevel analysis

Article References: Shrestha, R., Paudel, S., Rijal, A., Adhikari, T. B., Khatri, B., Neupane, D., Vaidya, A., Nielsen, R. Ø., & Kallestrup, P. (2026). Environmental and psychosocial contexts of device-measured physical activity and sedentary behaviour in semi-urban Nepal: a multilevel analysis. BMC Public Health. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-026-29793-w

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s12889-026-29793-w

Keywords: physical activity, sedentary behaviour, accelerometry, Nepal, low- and middle-income countries, built environment, perceived behavioural control, Theory of Planned Behaviour, multilevel analysis, public health, urbanisation, non-communicable diseases

The research, published in the journal Discover Sustainability, was conducted by Yi Huan Tan, Lai Ti Gew, Raja Affendi Raja Ali and Pei Boon Ooi, drawing on teams from Sunway University’s Jeffrey Cheah Sunway Medical School and School of Psychology, together with the Gut Research Group at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. The team set out to identify the determinants of sustainable single-use plastic waste management behaviour among active laboratory users in Malaysia. Rather than simply cataloguing what people throw away, the researchers wanted to understand the mental machinery behind the decision: the attitudes, social pressures, sense of control and environmental awareness that combine to shape whether a scientist sorts, reuses or properly disposes of plastic consumables.

To do this, the study leaned on one of the most widely used frameworks in behavioural science: the Theory of Planned Behaviour, or TPB. Developed originally to explain how human actions flow from intention, the theory proposes that the single best predictor of a behaviour is the intention to perform it, and that intention itself is driven by three factors. The first is attitude, meaning the individual’s evaluation of the behaviour as beneficial or harmful. The second is subjective norms, the perceived social pressure from colleagues, supervisors and peers to behave in a certain way. The third is perceived behavioural control, the person’s belief that they are actually capable of carrying out the behaviour given the resources, opportunities and obstacles they face.

The Malaysian team extended this classic model by adding a fourth psychological ingredient: environmental awareness, the depth of a person’s understanding of environmental problems and the consequences of their own actions. They also included a practical control variable, namely whether a sustainable waste management protocol was present in the respondent’s workplace, to test whether formal institutional rules shape outcomes independently of psychology. This combination allowed the researchers to weigh the relative power of internal beliefs against external structures, a question that matters enormously for anyone designing sustainability policies for research institutions.

Data came from a cross-sectional survey of 245 active laboratory users, recruited through an online questionnaire. The sample captured people who work at the bench day to day and therefore generate and handle laboratory plastic waste directly. The researchers then analysed the responses using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling, a statistical technique known as PLS-SEM that is well suited to testing complex networks of relationships between psychological constructs. Rather than examining each factor in isolation, PLS-SEM allows scientists to build a model in which attitudes, norms, control beliefs and awareness feed into intention, and intention and control in turn feed into actual reported behaviour, with the strength of each pathway estimated simultaneously.

The results were striking in several respects. Attitude, perceived behavioural control and environmental awareness all significantly predicted behavioural intention, confirming that laboratory users who view sustainable plastic management as worthwhile, who feel capable of doing it, and who understand the environmental stakes are more likely to intend to act. But the single strongest predictor was perceived behavioural control. In other words, what mattered most was not whether scientists cared, and not even whether they felt social pressure from those around them, but whether they believed they had the practical ability, time, facilities and institutional support to manage their plastic waste sustainably.

Just as telling was what failed to predict intention. Subjective norms, the social pressure component of the Theory of Planned Behaviour, showed no significant relationship with behavioural intention in this sample. This is a genuinely counterintuitive result, because in many environmental behaviour studies the expectations of peers and colleagues are a powerful lever. The finding suggests that in laboratory settings, simply encouraging a culture of sustainability, or relying on colleagues to nudge one another, may not be enough on its own. Scientists, the study implies, may respond less to what everyone around them says and more to what the workplace actually enables them to do.

The model’s downstream pathways reinforced this control-centred picture. Both behavioural intention and perceived behavioural control positively predicted sustainable waste management behaviours, meaning that good intentions do translate into action, but only when people also feel empowered to act. The practical implication is hard to overstate: institutions that want greener laboratories should focus less on persuasion and more on infrastructure. Accessible recycling streams, clear protocols, adequate bins, training and time built into workflows may accomplish what awareness campaigns alone cannot, because they directly strengthen the sense of control that the data identify as the dominant driver.

The presence of a sustainable waste management protocol as a control variable adds an organisational dimension to the findings. Formal protocols represent the institutional scaffolding within which individual psychology operates, and their inclusion acknowledges that laboratory behaviour is never purely a matter of personal choice. Sterility requirements, biosafety rules and experimental demands constrain what is possible at the bench, and a written, enforced protocol can either widen or narrow the space for sustainable action. By testing this factor alongside the psychological variables, the study offers a template for future research that treats individual motivation and organisational structure as interacting forces rather than competing explanations.

The broader context makes the study timely. Scientific research generates an enormous and growing stream of single-use plastic waste, and the sector’s reliance on disposable consumables has proven difficult to reconcile with sustainability goals. Yet laboratories are also places of unusually high expertise and, often, strong environmental values, which makes the gap between attitude and action especially frustrating. By showing that perceived behavioural control outweighs both attitude and social norms in this population, the Malaysian findings point toward a specific, actionable strategy: give laboratory users real options, clear procedures and genuine capability, and sustainable behaviour is likely to follow. The authors present their work as a contribution to the growing discourse on sustainable laboratory practices, offering recommendations for policy and organisational initiatives aimed at reducing single-use plastic waste in research settings. If the message spreads, the humble pipette tip box may finally get the recycling infrastructure its users have long intended to give it.

Subject of Research: Psychological determinants of sustainable single-use plastic waste management behaviour among laboratory users

Article Title: Sustainable single-use plastic waste management among laboratory users using theory of planned behaviour

Article References: Tan, Y. H., Gew, L. T., Raja Ali, R. A., & Ooi, P. B. (2026). Sustainable single-use plastic waste management among laboratory users using theory of planned behaviour. Discover Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43621-026-04891-2

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s43621-026-04891-2

Keywords: theory of planned behaviour, single-use plastic, laboratory waste, sustainable waste management, PLS-SEM, environmental awareness, perceived behavioural control, behavioural intention, Malaysia, environmental psychology, laboratory sustainability, waste management protocol

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