Drivers for sustainable food purchase intentions: Prosocial attitudes for future generations and environmental concerns

Generativity, concern and commitment for the next generation, is established to be important for understanding people’s behaviors to SDGs. However, little is known about how generativity is related to sustainable food consumption intentions and behaviors. We consider the extended theory of planned behavior (TPB), investigating the question “how generativity matters for consumers’ intentions to purchase sustainable foods along with environmental concerns (EC)?” and the hypothesis “prosocial attitudes for future generations (PAF), one measure of generativity, is the key determinant.” We employ a field survey, collecting data on the intentions to purchase organic foods (INT), TPB constructs, i.e., attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioral controls, PAF and EC with 300 household heads in Bangladesh. We confirm the significance of PAF and EC on top of TPB constructs by testing the causality through partial-least squares structural equation modeling, yielding two main results. First, not only PAF but also EC have substantial positive effects on consumer intentions to purchase organic foods. Second, the relations between PAF and INT as well as those between EC and INT are fully and partially mediated by attitudes, respectively. Thus, PAF and EC are established to be key determinants for favorable attitudes toward sustainable food-purchase intentions. Overall, the results demonstrate that enhancement of people’s orientations for environment and future generations is effective at shaping sustainable food cultures and practices, and to this end, some future-studies approaches in education, i.e., school and family levels, shall be recommended. • We address generativity for sustainable food purchase intentions with other factors. • Prosocial attitudes for future generations is used to measure generativity. • Partial-least squares structural equation modeling is applied for causal relations. • Concerns for future generations and environment characterize purchase intentions. • Future-studies approaches shall be effective at forming sustainable food practices.