Measuring sustainable consumption and social capital

Abstract

The present paper, of descriptive method, is proposed to measure the behavior related to sustainable consumption and social capital, evaluating the existence of relations between these concepts. The quantitative research was conducted in the city of Caxias do Sul, Brazil, with a sample of Business Management students from a local College. It was used descriptive statistics, factor analysis, linear regression and analysis of variance. The results showed that the respondents have not practiced sustainable consumption yet. The relation between the level of environmental awareness in consumer behavior to the level of social capital of the respondents pointed out the variables related to proactivity in the social diversity and tolerance, as significant in the process of social construction that leads to conscious consumption. Moreover, on the evaluation of capital, the variables related to participation in the community had lower levels of capital, while the variables related to the work environment have the best performances. The analyses of the research findings consider the socio-cultural aspects of the study area and it is therefore seeking to build relationships that are aligned with the specific and the endogenous forces of the site.