The Development and Testing of a Measure of Skepticism Toward Environmental Claims in Marketers' Communications

TLDR

Marketers' claims about the environmental effects of products and packaging are increasingly pervasive, yet consumers, consumer organizations, and governments recognize that such claims are met with skepticism. The study aims to develop a reliable and valid measure of consumer skepticism toward environmental claims in marketing. The authors conducted a two‑stage research project that yielded a four‑item scale for assessing skepticism toward environmental claims in advertising and packaging. The resulting scale demonstrates acceptable reliability and validity.

Abstract

Marketers' claims about the environmental effects of products and their packaging are becoming more pervasive. Consumer organizations, government, and marketers have long realized that consumers receive such claims with some degree of skepticism. An investigation of how consumer skepticism affects the response to “green” marketing claims would be facilitated by a reliable and valid measure of skepticism. This paper describes a two‐stage research project and the resulting four‐item measure of skepticism toward environmental claims made in advertising and on packages. The scale has acceptable levels of reliability and validity.