Determinants of pro-environmental behaviour: bioethanol fuel purchasing in Vietnam

Abstract

Encouraging consumption of renewable energy, including biofuels, for transport is one way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In the past two decades in Vietnam remarkable economic growth has resulted in a significant increase in traditional energy consumption, leading to a substantial rise in greenhouse gas emissions. In response, the Vietnamese government has developed various strategies, including the launch of a bioethanol fuel, E5, in December 2014. Remarkably, two months after its introduction, E5 sales were equal to about 11% of total petrol consumption, which is higher than ethanol’s shares in the gasoline markets of the USA (10%) end Europe (4.5%) in 2011 and 2013 respectively, even though bioethanol had been on the market a considerably longer time in those countries. This research identifies factors that affect E5 purchasing through applying a modified version of Triandis’ Theory of Interpersonal Behaviour (TIB). Apart from considering influence on E5 purchasing behaviour of the original TIB’s constructs including Intention, Habit and Facilitating Conditions, the applied framework investigates impacts of respondents’ Environmental Knowledge about E5 relevant issues and their perceived power to overcome barriers to buying E5, which have proved strong predictive abilities in previous studies. An Internet survey collected data on Vietnamese consumers’ perspectives and experiences of E5 consumption. A total of 159 responses were collected within the final phase of data collection, denoting approximately 35% of response rate of the Internet-based mode. The research findings indicate that Habit is the strongest determinant of both Intention to buy E5 and actual E5 purchase. The overwhelming influence of Habit implied that changing the habit of using conventional petrol is probably the most efficient approach to encourage E5 consumption. Intention and Facilitating Conditions are the two other significant antecedents of E5 purchasing Behaviour. E5 purchasing Intention is influenced by Attitude towards purchase of this product and Social Factors, along with Habit. The present research reveals that Environmental Knowledge did not affect E5 purchasing Behaviour. Barriers to E5 consumption, including availability of E5 stations, E5 price and cooperation of petrol attendants, were a significant but weak predictor of E5 actual use, implying that policies addressing these barriers might still be helpful but their contributions would likely be limited. The present study confirms the adequacy of the modified TIB in explaining E5 purchasing behaviour, which has not previously been used to predict biofuel consumption behaviour in particular, and pro-environmental behaviours in general. The modified TIB, however, is not capable of explaining how the habit of using traditional petrol can be changed and how E5 purchasing habit can be formed. This issue should be addressed in future research in order to identify possible interventions to encourage consumption of the more environmentally friendly petrol.