ENVIRONMENTAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN PRODUCT PURCHASES – A STUDY OF STUDENTS COMMUNITY

Dr. Gaurav Sehgal Associate Professor (on Deputation) Department of HRM & OB School of Business Studies Central University of Jammu Jammu, J&K State India. ...................................................................................................................... Manuscript Info Abstract ......................... ........................................................................ Manuscript History


ISSN: 2320-5407
Int. J. Adv. Res. 4(12), 724-731 725 Introduction:-Consumption is good for society that it is environmentally sustainable and socially fair and tends to improve the quality of life. Some households and business firms fulfill part of their ecological responsibility by limiting family size and installing recycling and reprocessing equipment. Unless compelled by law or social custom, resource conservation practices may not become as effective or universal as the new world situation. Two things are needed, one a new attitude towards the meaning of consumption and second social organizations to implement such an attitude.
Universities play a vital role in the above stated attitude change. Universities are social organizations which deal and interact with the young minds and souls of any nation. Youth as is well said are creators of the future, henceforth, for our study the students" community from university setup was considered as the population.
Although the concept under study originated from a criticism of the consumer society, it is important to mention that the debate on related consumption with ethical position is very recent. The idea of "ethical consumption" should initially be based on the definition of "ethics". In general, it refers to consumption that not only considers our personal welfare but also considers general welfare. This is a consumption in which production is completed, generating an impact on the eco-system and society in general. Under this idea, the choice of type of consumption can benefit or hinder the creation or maintenance of the productive jobs in a specific society, the preservation of ecosystem and the promotion of the general welfare of communities, countries and the entire earth. In ethical consumption, ethics as a set of values based on responsibility to oneself, to others and to the environment being the central point of all our actions in life. It includes, therefore, respect for the limits of nature and man himself, acknowledgement of the mother earth as a source of life, co-responsibility for society and the acknowledgement of the rights of others to access the resources and products that are necessary for a dignified quality of life. Ethical consumption is a growing phenomenon. An increasing number of people make their consumption decisions on the basis of ethical values, such as environmental friendly products and production methods that comply labor standards and human rights. Consumers around the globe are still much more familiar with the functional attributes of products that they are with their social attributes.
We basically need to be responsible consumers so that one buy the appropriate, right things one need. As well one should not harm environment in general and the surroundings in particular. Irresponsible buying can harm the environment. Waste is one of the kind of things that affects our entire globe, and since now people probably know that we need a healthy environment to keep us healthy and cheerful. Packaging also affects the environment to a larger extent. Some people who buy products with packaging, but most of the times these products hardly require ant packaging.
Thus, as consumers we use and create waste. Student community are the largest consumers and also larger producers of waste. Hence a control on the use of buying non-environmental friendly products by the students in social organizations such as university setup, would ideally lead to a long commitment of responsible consumerism.

Hypothesis:-
For the present study, NULL hypothesis has been established, which asserts that there is no significant difference in the static sample and population parameter under consideration. Following hypothesis have been framed to direct the analysis objectively. H n1 : Environmental consciousness does notvary with Gender. H n2 : Environmental consciousness does notvary with Residential Status.
Sample Population:-Students from two universities one each in rural location and urban location were selected for the study under reference. Moreover, one of the university, viz, BGSB Universiy, Rajouri was chosen because of the reason that it is only nine years old university and caters typically to the students from minority community as well as it is located in a rural location and the second university, viz, University of Jammu was chosen because it is located in the heart of the city and is a well established university and mostly caters to the students belonging to urban community.

Sample Size and Data Collection Method:-
A total of 175 students were contacted for collecting data for the study under reference. Data was collected from the students of the two universities by two means. Some students were contacted through email, which were collected 726 from personal sources as well as Placement Brochures and were asked to mark their responses on the sent word document. Also some students were made to fill up the responses for the study personally within the campus of the two universities.

Dimensions / Parameters of the Study:-
A total of eight dimensions were selected and made available for the students to mark their responses. The eight selected dimensions were arranges systematically and were required to be rated on a 5-point Likert Scale, as given below.

Dimension Strongly Agree
Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 Recycling reduce pollution Recycling save natural resources Packaging should be done with recycled material Excessive packaging damages the environment One should refuse to buy from companied which produce environment pollution One should avoid buying products from irresponsible companies Read labels for their damage to the environment One should prefer buying products in refilling containers Theses dimensions have been adopted from one of the studies conducted by "Brown and Wahlers" in the year 1998. The above mentioned eight dimensions were presented before the respondents in the form of questionnaire and their responses were recorded. As far as their Demographic details are concerned, for the present study only the Gender and the Residential Status (rural / urban) of the respondents were recorded. Table 1:-below presents the environmental consciousness in product purchase of the respondents as per their Gender.

Group Statistics
Gender   Table 3:-below presents the environmental consciousness in product purchase of the respondents as per their Residential Status.       The second last column of the table labeled as "F" tests the ratio of two mean squares. When the F value is large and the significance level is small (typically smaller than 0.05 or 0.01) the null hypothesis can be rejected. In other words, a small significance level indicates that the results probably are not due to random chance. The next column labeled "Sig." is also known as "p-value" and represents the conditional probability that a relationship as strong as the one observed in the data would be present, if the null hypothesis were true. Typically a value of less than 0.05 is considered significant. From the table we observe that, the following dimensions do not present a significant difference in the mean value of environmental consciousness while purchasing product across different categories of respondents: Recycling save natural resources; Excessive packaging damages environment; Refuse to buy from accused retailer; Avoid buying from irresponsible company; Buying in refillable containers.