Factors affecting consumers’ attitudes towards low water footprint products

Purpose: The purpose of this research is to explore some of the factors that are expected to influence consumers' attitudes towards low water footprint products and thereby provide insight into the concept of water footprint from a consumer behavior perspective. Design/Methodology/Approach: Data were collected from 383 consumers using the convenience sampling method. The SPSS v24 package program was used for the descriptive statistics of the research, and the LISREL 11 package program was used for confirmatory factor analysis and to test the research hypotheses via structural equation modeling. Findings: Consumers’ water footprint consciousness, concerns about water resources, and attitudes towards water sustainability positively affect their attitudes towards low water footprint products whereas consumers’ lack of habit to reduce their water footprints negatively affect their attitudes towards low water footprint products. Furthermore, according to the findings, consumers' water footprint consciousness and concerns about water resources are high, their attitudes towards water sustainability and low water footprint products are positive, and they do not have a lack of habit to reduce their water footprint. Originality/Value: Since the concept of water footprint has been insufficiently examined in the consumer behavior and product management literature compared to the concepts of carbon footprint and ecological footprint, the originality of this research stems from the fact that this research makes important theoretical and practical contributions to the sustainability, consumer behavior and product management literatures by expanding the scope of empirical research on the concept of water footprint.