Content area
Full Text
1. Introduction
With the growing importance of sustainable consumption, food consumption is recognized as a major sustainability issue because of its impact on personal and public health, natural resources, social cohesion and the economy (Annunziata et al., 2019; de Boer et al., 2007; Thøgersen, 2017). Compared to traditional food, organic food is healthier, fresher, and more environmentally friendly, and it better supports the local economy (De-Magistris and Gracia, 2016; Katt and Meixner, 2020; Verain et al., 2015), so organic food consumption is considered an important form of sustainable consumption (Seconda et al., 2017; Strassner et al., 2015).
In recent years, enterprises have increasingly incorporated various ecological and social welfare concerns when adopting the principles of sustainable development (Kushwah et al., 2019a). Meanwhile, the public is increasingly paying attention to healthy, safe, nutritious and environmentally friendly organic food, so the organic market has developed rapidly (Basha and Lal, 2019; Kareklas et al., 2014). In 2018, the global organic agricultural land area was approximately 71.5 million hectares, the total market value of organic food was estimated to be 96.7 billion euros, and global per capita consumption was approximately 12.8 euros (Willer and Lernoud, 2020). In China, the total market value of organic food was approximately 8.1 billion euros in 2018, up 10 times compared with 2009 (Willer and Lernoud, 2020). However, in 2018, China's per capita consumption is only approximately 5.8 euros, less than half the level of global per capita consumption. In addition, China's organic food market started late, the organic food market is still relatively small in size at present, and consumer groups are mainly concentrated in large cities (Xu, 2017), which hinders the development of China's organic industry. Therefore, it is imperative to take effective measures to promote sustainable food consumption in China, especially of organic food.
The factors affecting organic consumption have been widely discussed by previous studies. Rana and Paul (2017) have comprehensively evaluated various factors that influence consumers' purchases of organic food, including egoistic factors (e.g. health, taste and food safety), altruistic factors and biosphere motives (e.g. environmental protection and animal welfare). Moreover, Sheth et al. (1991) have pointed out that consumption values explain the internal reasons for consumers to choose specific product....