The impacts of green claims on coffee consumers’ purchase intention

Purpose – As huge environmental impacts caused by the coffee industry are significant and controversial in the course from cultivation to consumption, the purpose of this paper is to investigate whether or not different types of green claims based on the product lifecycle can lead to different extents of green psychological variables including purchase intention. Design/methodology/approach – The green claims of Starbucks were chosen as the research target for this study not only because the coffee chain store is working on the “Starbucks” Shared Planet’ program, which makes a commitment to do business in ways that are good for people and the planet, but also because such a program can be categorized into three major green message elements on the basis of the product lifecycle. A total of 920 valid self-reported questionnaires collected in Taiwan were used for this empirical analysis. Findings – One-way ANOVA results reveal that all of the three green claims of Starbucks can lead to consumers building up the same level of green brand image of this company, with “ethical sourcing” significantly possessing more impacts on the other green psychological variables (i.e. green trust, green satisfaction, green brand equity, and green purchase intention). Practical implications – The empirical results and findings from this study are helpful to the coffee industry marketers if they, in formulating various promotion campaigns, can communicate with the consumers with an eye to increasing their green brand image and other green psychological variables, including green purchase intention. Originality/value – This study is among the first to introduce different types of green claims on a basis of the product lifecycle to examine whether or not consumers’ green psychological variables will be different.