Influencer marketing and consumer engagement in shaping the relationship between pro-environmental behavior and sustainable consumption

To explore the relationship between pro-environmental behaviour and sustainable consumption and to assess the mediating effects of cognitive, emotional and behavioural engagement, as well as the moderating effect of influencer marketing, within the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) model. The data were collected through a structured questionnaire completed by 489 respondents in Pakistan and analyzed using SPSS and SmartPLS 4. Purposive sampling was used, and the sample size was calculated with G*Power. Pro-environmental behavior was significant and positive both directly and indirectly, via cognitive, emotional and behavioral engagement, for sustainable consumption. Influencer marketing was found to have a marginal influence supporting the relationship between pro-environmental behavior and cognitive engagement, and not to significantly moderate the emotional or behavioral engagement pathways. This study builds on Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) theory by introducing pro-environmental behavior and influencer marketing as stimuli, consumer engagement as the organism, and sustainable consumption as the response. The findings reveal that the psychological mechanisms underlying the transition from pro-environmental attitude to sustainable consumption are cognitive, emotional and behavioral and that the degree of boundary condition (cognitive, emotional, behavioral engagement) is different for each of the identified psychological mechanisms, with influencer marketing most effectively shifting cognitive engagement.