Sustainable consumption habits and future generations’ awareness in Latin American

Ortegón-Cortázar L.; Santucci M.; Iglesias-Pina D.; Acevedo-Duque Á.; Méndez-Lazarte C. · Retos (Ecuador) (2025) · DOI: 10.17163/ret.n30.2025.01

Resumen

environmental challenges in Latin America demand a clearer understanding of what motivates consumers to behave sustainably. Accordingly, this study aimed to examine how future-generation awareness promotes sustainable consumption habits and drives eco-friendly purchasing among consumers in five developing countries—Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Chile, and Argentina—and, specifically, to test the mediating role of such habits in the relationship between future-generation awareness and eco-friendly buying. A survey of 1,466 consumers was conducted across the target countries. Data were analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) to explore the direct and indirect links between future-generation awareness, sustainable consumption habits, and eco-friendly product purchasing. The integrative model revealed that future-generation awareness strongly stimulates sustainable habits, which, in turn, account for a substantial proportion of eco-friendly purchasing behaviour, thereby confirming the proposed mediation. Multi-group analysis further uncovered country-specific nuances without undermining the global validity of the model. These findings suggest that campaigns grounded in intergenerational responsibility, combined with incentives that facilitate daily practice, can accelerate the widespread adoption of sustainable consumption behaviors in emerging economies, while also offering valuable guidance for public policy by supporting environmental regulation, fiscal incentives, and education as tools to promote sustainable consumption within institutional and governmental frameworks.

Instituciones: Universidad de Lima