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This study aims to explore whether religiosity influences ecologically conscious consumption behaviour (ECCB) among Muslim consumers in India.

A structured questionnaire was developed and administered to a sample of 191 young male Muslim respondents. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and post hoc tests were used to test the proposed hypotheses.

The results indicated a significant positive correlation between religiosity and ECCB. Pro-religious and intrinsically religious consumers reported higher importance to ECCB than non-religious and extrinsically religious consumers. It is, therefore, concluded that religiosity plays an important role in determining ECCB among Muslim consumers in India.

The study sample comprised Indian university students as respondents, whose consumption behaviours may be constrained by limited independent income. Further, only male students have been included because of methodological considerations.

This study suggests that green marketers can use religiosity as a possible segmentation variable to effectively position their products. Religious messages or symbols can be invoked in advertising and other communication campaigns by marketers to gain acceptance for green products and consumption behaviours among consumers.

Few studies have examined the role of religiosity and its impact on consumer behaviour. The present study sought to address this gap in literature and offers preliminary insights about how marketers can effectively use religious symbols for marketing green products to consumers. The study is an initial attempt to provide elementary understanding about the consumption behaviour of Indian Muslims who have been insufficiently investigated by marketing and consumer researchers.

A growing religious-environmental movement is working to reconcile environmental thought and practice with the mission and ministry of religious organizations. We examine two leading interfaith social change organizations and identify key strategies they routinely employ to create shared meaning and alignment between environmentalism and faith. They reframe stewardship in religious organizations by (1) highlighting and interpreting environmental themes in sacred texts and scriptures, (2) celebrating and fostering mutual awareness of environmental action by faith-based organizations, and (3) providing resources and creating linkages between clergy and lay leaders across religious congregations. By emphasizing moral and spiritual rationales for the adoption of resource-saving products and behaviors at both the congregational and household level, these networked organizations help shift the perception of global climate change from an insurmountable problem to one that is being addressed in cooperation with similar others. Our investigation reveals organizational actors deeply engaged in growing moral calls for political action to address climate change and underscores the need for more socially realistic models of technology adoption and behavior change.

Spiritual ecology explores the interface of religions and spiritualities on the one hand, and environments, ecologies, and environmentalisms on the other. As an international environmental movement, spiritual ecology involves a multitude of diverse leaders, organizations, and initiatives. They share a common concern and commitment to pursuing the vital role of religion and spirituality in environmentalism to complement secular approaches to environmental problems and issues from the local to the global levels. Here, after some background, spiritual ecology as a component of the phenomena of international environmental movements is exemplified through three cases: the Green Belt Movement beginning in Kenya, the Green Patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Alliance of Religions and Conservation affiliate of the World Wide Fund for Nature (formerly World Wildlife Fund).

The purpose of this paper is to identify the spiritual and economic reasons behind Homo sapiens' misuse and destruction of the biotic web. Through the argument that we are a self‐seeking, opportunistic species that now acts out our domination of the planet without restraint, attention to given to the motivations for such actions. To counter the downward spiral of rampant exploitation, consumption and poverty, by presenting the religious environmental perspectives that can be used to stem the process of global environmental devastation.

The methodologies utilized are ecosophical, ecofeminist, comparative religious discourse, and structural functionalist.

The issues are overwhelming without a strong moral, environmental foundation. The power to effect the practical, widespread changes necessary can be derived from the ancient concepts of the sacred, or the concept of inherent worth, within all life forms. These concepts can and do combat the exploitive materialism of our global economies and could change the way the “system” works.

The paper identifies the root causes of our environmental dysfunction and presents the potential within the religious environmental perspectives. These perspectives can be used as a means to create a practical modus operandi for the practitioner of religion and the policy maker.

The paper presents the reality of environmental degradation and, through environmental spirituality, offers a valid alternative to the maximum trade growth and systemic global consumer mentality. Using ancient concepts, it establishes a viable avenue of dialogue between religious communities and business for the benefit of all.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between religious beliefs and socially responsible investment in the Indian agricultural industry.

Owners of small agribusiness firms from India were interviewed regarding their perceptions of religious beliefs and socially responsible investment in the agricultural industry.

The survey indicates that while religious beliefs and internal financing sources increase perceived socially responsible investment, the higher cost of debt capital decreases perceived socially responsible investment in the Indian agricultural industry. The higher level of internal financing sources, however, decreases the perceived cost of debt capital which may increase socially responsible investment in the Indian agricultural industry.

This is a co-relational study that investigated the association between religious beliefs and socially responsible investment. There is not necessarily a causal relationship between the two. The findings of this study may only be generalized to firms similar to those that were included in this research.

This study contributes to the literature on the factors that increase socially responsible investment in the agricultural industry. The study also provides critical policy recommendations to minimize managerial implications. The findings may be useful for financial managers, agribusiness owners (farmers), investors, agribusiness management consultants, and other stakeholders.

The purpose of this paper is to report on an action research programme in the UK to address this through the notion of religious literacy.

Drawing on original research and analysis in UK higher education settings, the article will argue that health and social care educators, policy makers and practitioners need to develop their religious literacy in order to engage fully and competently with the religion and belief identities of their service users in a religiously diverse and complex world.

The relationship between religion and belief on the one hand and health and social care practice has been scarcely addressed, despite the important work of Furness and Gilligan in the UK and Canada in the USA. Their work appears as exceptional within a wider context of professions which have been forged in a predominantly secular milieu, despite having their roots in Christian social services in the USA, Canada and the UK. New research in the sociology of religion shows that religion and belief themselves vary in form, number and mix around the world, and that the religious landscape itself has changed enormously in the period during which secular social work has been changing significantly in recent years. It has been observed that in the UK secular assumptions reached a peak of confidence in the 1960s, when social work was most rapidly consolidating as a public profession (Dinham 2015). The inheritance has been generations of health and social care practitioners and educators who are ill-equipped to address the religion and belief identities which they encounter. In recent years this has become a pressing issue as societies across the West come to terms with the persistent – and in some ways growing – presence of religion or belief, against the expectations of secularism. In total, 84 per cent of the global population declares a religious affiliation (Pew, 2012); globalisation and migration put us all in to daily encounter with religious plurality as citizens, neighbours, service users and professionals; and internationally, mixed economies of welfare increasingly involve faith groups in service provision, including in social work and welfare settings across Europe and North America. Yet the twentieth century – the secular century – leaves behind a lamentable quality of conversation about religion and belief. Public professionals find themselves precarious on the subject, and largely unable to engage systematically and informedly with religion and belief as they encounter them.

Religion and belief have been bracketed off in education in departments of Theology and Religious Studies. Social work education has largely neglected them, and professional standards, benchmarks, values and toolkits, have tended to use proxies for religion and belief, such as “spirituality”, which are often ill-defined and vague. In a context of the reemergence of public faith, and a widespread acknowledgement that religion and belief did not go away after all, health and social care face the pressing challenge of engaging skilfully. This article draws on an action research programme in the UK to address this through the notion of religious literacy. Reflecting on original research and analysis in UK higher education settings, the article will argue that health and social care educators, policy makers and practitioners need to develop their religious literacy in order to engage fully and competently with the religion and belief identities of their service users in a religiously diverse and complex world.

Despite the importance of sustainability, some conservative religious groups do not believe and support climate change. There is a continuous debate on the role of religion on people’s attitudes toward the environment. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to (1) explore the impact of consumers’ religious orientation on motivation and commitment toward recycling; (2) examine the impact of economic motivation, commitment and love for nature toward intention to recycle; (3) investigate the mediating effect of motivation, commitment and love for nature on the relationship between consumer religiosity and their intention to recycle; and (4) examine the impact of consumers’ intention toward its subsequent behavior.

Using convenience sampling methods, participants were recruited through an online survey platform (MTurk). The total completed respondents are 827 participants.

The results show consumers’ religiousness influence their motivation, commitment and love for nature. This study shows that consumers with high intrinsic and extrinsic religiousness are more likely to be motivated by economic motivation. Being religious does not make consumers more environmentally friendly.

This study did not separate religion and between religious and non-religious consumers. Each religion may perceive environments differently. Future research may investigate each religion separately.

This paper has several contributions: (1) it contributes to the debate on the impact of religiousness on consumers’ attitudes toward sustainable-related behavior such as recycling. Does it matter? (2) the results show the most effective way to increase people’s intention to recycle; and (3) the results of this study will have implications for government, religious institutions on how to increase positive attitude toward the environment especially among religious consumers.

This study aims to investigate specific green-brand affect in terms of commitment and connection through the morality–mortality determinants of consumer social responsibility and the assumptions of terror management theory in the proposed three-layered framework. Religiosity serves as a moderator within the framework.

Data are collected in Taipei, Taiwan, while quota sampling is applied, and 420 valid questionnaires are collected. The partial least squares technique is applied for data analysis.

With the contingent role of religiosity, consumer social responsibility influences socially conscious consumption, which in turn drives the commitment and connection of green-brand affect. The death anxiety and self-esteem outlined in terror management theory influence materialism, which then drives green-brand commitment; however, contrary to expectations, they do not drive green-brand connection.

By considering green brands beyond their cognitive aspects and into their affective counterparts, morality–mortality drivers of green-brand commitment and green-grand connection are explored to provide unique contributions so as to better understand socially responsible consumption.

The purpose of this study is to examine the predictabilities of five intra-personal factors to predict pro-environmental consumer behavior (PECB) and the moderating role of religiosity in Oman.

The study uses neural network to analyze the antecedents/antecedents × religiosity → PECB relationships by using a sample of 306 consumers from Oman.

This study finds that the most important predictors of PECB, according to the order of importance, are attitude × religiosity, knowledge, concern × religiosity, knowledge × religiosity, value, religiosity, attitude, concern and value × religiosity.

The convenience sample from a single Islamic country limits the generalizability of the findings. Future studies should use probabilistic sampling techniques and multiple Islamic countries located in different geographical regions.

To promote PECB, businesses and policymakers should provide environmental education to expand knowledge and value, leverage ecological religious values in integrated marketing communications, make positive inducements to change attitude and concern enhancing interventions.

As religiosity enhances PECB by moderating the impacts of environmental intra-personal factors on PECB, businesses and policymakers should find ways to use faith-based ecological messages in Islamic countries.

Determining the predictabilities of psychological factors and their interactions with religiosity to predict PECB in Islamic countries is necessary for promoting environmentally friendly products in Islamic countries and for reducing the ecological damage to the environment.

This study examines the relation between voluntary corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure and the local religious norms of firms’ stakeholders. Little is known about how these local norms (measured at the county level) affect firms’ disclosure practices and firm value, especially voluntary disclosure on climate change and environmental and social responsibility.

Poisson regression models test for a significant relation between firms’ voluntary CSR disclosure intensity and the local religious norms of firms’ stakeholders. Also, an event study tests whether the local religious norms affect investment returns. The data analyzed are extracted from the archive of CSRwire, a prominent news organization that distributes CSR news to investors and the public worldwide.

The study finds that firms in high adherence (high churchgoer) locations disclose CSR activities less frequently, and firms in high affiliation (a high proportion of non-evangelical Christian churchgoers) locations disclose CSR activities more frequently. The study also finds that managers make firm-value-increasing CSR disclosure decisions that cater to the religious and social norms of the local community.

The results imply that managers self-identify with the local religious norms of stakeholders and appropriately disclose less about CSR activities when religious adherence is high and when religious affiliation (the ratio of non-evangelicals to evangelical Christians) is low. The authors find this noteworthy because religious bodies often call for greater CSR involvement and disclosure. Yet, at the firm level, it would appear that local community religious norms also prevail, as it is shown that they significantly explain firms’ CSR disclosure behavior, implying that managers cater to local religious norms in their disclosure decisions.

The findings suggest that managers vary the timing and intensity of voluntary CSR disclosure consistent with stakeholders’ local religious and social norms and that it would be costly and inefficient if the firms were to expand CSR disclosure without considering the religious norms of their local community.

This is the first large-sample study to show that local religious norms affect CSR disclosure behavior. The study makes use of a unique and novel data set obtained exclusively from CSRwire.