The Motivation–impact Gap in Pro-environmental Clothing Consumption

Accurate models of pro-environmental behaviour can support environmental sustainability. Previous studies identifying the psychological predictors of pro-environmental behaviour rarely accounted for environmental impact. We studied the greenhouse gas emissions of clothing purchasing across four countries. Clothing purchasing is responsible for 2–3% of global emissions and severe, local environmental degradation. We found, using multiple regression analyses, that psychological factors like attitudes and personal norms strongly predicted a common self-reported behaviour scale of clothing purchasing but only weakly predicted clothing-related greenhouse gas emissions. This result challenges widespread inferences using pro-environmental behaviour scales and suggests that psychological factors may be a poor predictor of clothing-related environmental impact.