Purpose: Consumers’ environmental behaviours are not only the result of their positive attitudes towards environments, but also different reasons and motivations exist. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to find out important factors affecting sustainable apparel buying behaviour. Applying the theory of planned behaviour (TPB), this study further examines how knowledge about sustainable apparel, perceived money availability, and perceived accessibility to the store influence sustainable apparel consumption. Design/methodology/approach: Using a purposive college student sample, 235 usable responses were collected to answer the questions. An exploratory factor analysis with principal component analysis was first performed followed by confirmatory factor analysis, and a structural equation modelling analysis. Findings: Results revealed that the TPB was successfully applied in the context of sustainable apparel buying behaviour. Furthermore, it was found that consumers’ perceived money availability and perceived store accessibility are important factors that affect control beliefs and sustainable consumption. Research limitations/implications: This study found the needs of educating college students for contexts of environmental apparel and textiles issues. Originality/value: Even though previous literature often found the gap between the behavioural intentions and the actual behaviour, this study found the respondents of this study walk their talk. This study successfully applied the TPB to explain consumers’ sustainable apparel buying behaviour.

Marketers use celebrity endorsements to make advertisements believable and to enhance consumer recognition of the brand name. However, once a direct link has been formed from a celebrity to a brand, the negative information about the celebrity may reflect on to the endorsed brand. Applying the S-O-R model and the balance theory, the purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of celebrity-brand congruence and publicity on consumers’ attitudes toward the celebrity and brand as well as their buying intention. A survey of a 2 (congruence vs. incongruence) × 2 (positive vs. negative publicity) experimental design was conducted for this study. A total of 120 female Millennial consumers answered the survey and 105 surveys with usable data were collected. The mean age of the participants was 24 years old (SD = 3.28). Results found that the celebrity-brand congruence and publicity play a significant role in consumer behavior related to attitudes toward the celebrity and brand/product, as well as buying intention. Thus, retail marketers need to allocate more investigation into celebrity endorsements that match with brand image that can lead to long-term, positive partnerships.

Communication utilizing proper message framing is a crucial component in the promotion of sustainability and other related activities. Additionally, engaging all stakeholders in sustainable communication and endeavors is proven to be essential to corporate success. This is especially true for textile and apparel retailers, as they strive to gain competitive advantages through the incorporation of sustainability in their communication with their stakeholders. Therefore, promotional activities consisting of different message framing types can be a profitable way to reach, inform, and persuade consumers to engage in sustainable activities and to support corporate sustainability initiatives. Based on two theoretical foundations, the social cognitive theory and the dual-process model, this study investigates how different aspects of sustainability and message framing can persuade textile and apparel consumers to engage in sustainable behavior. The findings of this study demonstrated that each message framing type significantly influences the consumers’ emotion. Further, when the textile and apparel consumers purchase sustainable products, as a result of conscious decision-making or without much thought put into the buying decision, the act of buying sustainable products per se compels the consumers to make sustainable choices in the future.

Consumers and professionals realize the importance of adopting social and environmental responsibility, but it is not easy for companies to implement transparent sustainability strategies that consumers can trust. Thus, it is often hard for consumers to compare brands to make conscious sustainability decisions. Blockchain technology is proposed as a bridge between ecolabels and industry initiatives as this technology provides the transparency of sustainable business practices. The objective of this study is to examine the effects of effectiveness, knowledge of the sustainability initiative, and trust in claims made by a company in ecolabels (i.e., traditional and blockchain ecolabels) on intention to buy products by comparing Generations X and Y. A total of 200 participants completed the survey. The results indicated that both the trust and knowledge measures were higher for the blockchain label than for the traditional ecolabel for Generation Y. Thus, the companies should determine how to effectively integrate this technology to the mutual benefit of the retailer and consumer by different generations.