Relationship between corporate environmental sustainability and consumer buying behaviour of female millennials in the clothing industry: consumer willingness to pay for environmentally friendly apparel

Objectives The main objective of this study was to explore the attitudes of millennial consumers towards sustainable fashion products, and especially explore the willingness of Finnish millennial girls to pay for sustainable apparel. Other objectives included finding out the opinion amongst existing literature about consumers’ attitudes towards sustainable fashion. Additionally, the study set out to find ways in which companies can positively affect consumers’ attitudes and buying behavior related to sustainable fashion products. Summary Companies in the fashion industry have many stakeholders, who are affected by the actions of these companies. These include customers, investors, and the environment. Therefore, many companies are pressured to produce clothing items in a sustainable way. Inversely, consumers and their willingness to pay for sustainable clothing items have a substantial effect on these companies. To explore the consumer attitudes and willingness to pay for sustainable apparel, existing literature on the subject was reviewed, and ten Finnish millennial girls were interviewed. Conclusions The findings indicate, that there is a gap between millennial consumers’ attitudes and intentions, and their actual behavior. Additionally, it appears that at the moment, there is not a significant number of consumers that would be willing to pay a premium for sustainable apparel. The findings also show that environmental sustainability can be beneficial for companies when used in marketing, but that sustainable fashion companies need to increase their visibility, and possibly increase the amount of clothing items and brands that are sustainable but have a more conventional design