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. Accurate models of pro-environmental behaviour can inform interventions to foster sustainability. This study estimates the extent to which psychological factors like attitudes and personal norms explain greenhouse gas emissions from clothing purchasing across four countries.