Eco-Literacy Among Urban Indian Consumers and Its Relation with Socio Demographic Factors and Green Household Practices: An Empirical Investigation

Purpose This paper is based on field research that assesses eco- literacy of urban Indian consumers from ten select cities of India. It also studies the association of socio-demographic factors as well as green household practices with eco-literacy scores. Design/Methodology/Approach The study involves 507 respondents from various cities belonging to Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 categories in India. A structured self- reporting questionnaire is prepared based on scales adapted from previously proven research instruments by famous researchers. Cross tabulation and Chi-square Analysis have been mainly used to test the hypotheses of the present study. Findings The study revealed that Gender, Age, Occupation, Educational Qualification, Household Size did not have any significant relationship with eco-literacy. Also, it was found that Green Household Practices have significant relationship on eco-literacy. However, taking City Tier as a Control Variable, we find that. For Tier 1 cities, there is a significant relation between eco-literacy and Green Household Practices. For Tier 2 cities, there is a significant relation between Eco-literacy and Gender, Eco-literacy and Age and Eco-literacy and Occupation. Also, there is significant relation between eco-literacy and monthly income for Tier 1 and tier 2 cities. Practical Implications Earlier studies have not studied the role of control variables which must actually be considered for meaningful results. Originality/Value It gives importance on the role of green household practices Keywords: control variable, eco-literacy, green household practices, socio-demographic, tier cities.