Environmental Values and Clothing Consumption: Do Clothing Purchases Reflect Expressed Environmental Values?

Conference Year

January 2019

Abstract

Fast fashion, the rapid production and consumption of cheaply made clothing products, can have negative effects on both environmental and human health. I am interested in exploring if people with strong environmental values make more sustainable clothing purchasing decisions. I will first survey participants using Mayer & Frantz’s connectedness to nature scale (CNS) as well as Haws, Winterich, & Naylor’s GREEN scale. Then, I will record some basic information about the clothing that respondents are wearing when they take the survey. I will then compare the sustainability of what they are wearing with their survey responses in order to determine if there is any correlation between environmental values and clothing purchasing decisions.

Primary Faculty Mentor Name

rgould@uvm.edu

Faculty/Staff Collaborators

Professor Brendan Fisher (Collaborating Mentor), Professor Jane Kolodinsky (Collaborating Mentor)

Status

Undergraduate

Student College

Rubenstein School of Environmental and Natural Resources

Second Student College

College of Arts and Sciences

Program/Major

Environmental Studies

Second Program/Major

Political Science

Primary Research Category

Food & Environment Studies

Abstract only.

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Environmental Values and Clothing Consumption: Do Clothing Purchases Reflect Expressed Environmental Values?

Fast fashion, the rapid production and consumption of cheaply made clothing products, can have negative effects on both environmental and human health. I am interested in exploring if people with strong environmental values make more sustainable clothing purchasing decisions. I will first survey participants using Mayer & Frantz’s connectedness to nature scale (CNS) as well as Haws, Winterich, & Naylor’s GREEN scale. Then, I will record some basic information about the clothing that respondents are wearing when they take the survey. I will then compare the sustainability of what they are wearing with their survey responses in order to determine if there is any correlation between environmental values and clothing purchasing decisions.