YOUTH 2020 - The position of young people in Slovenia

Consumer behaviour and consumer activities  303 Figure 9.5: Environmental concerns and young people’s consumption. 5% 10% 15% 25% 20% 30% 35% 40% Environmental concerns - Where possible, I buy local products that are not transported over long distances. Environmental concerns - I minimise my consumption/purchases to only wha I really need because of environmental problems. Strongly disagree. 5.8 13.7 26.9 37.5 16.1 4.1 13.0 30.3 37.5 15.1 Disagree. Neither agree nor disagree. Agree. Strongly agree. 0% Source: Mladina 2020. While the two pro-environmental components of shopping are statisti- cally significantly associated with gender (r = 0.15; p < 0.01) in terms of higher levels of pro-environmental behaviour among women, it is inter- esting to note the non-significant influence of the family’s material situa- tion (in the case of buying local), political orientation, or place of residence (size, region). When analysing the value orientations associated with consumption among young people, it is therefore necessary to take into account the trend towards declarative beliefs, which often lead to contradictions in the respondents’ views on how to explain the desired changes in con- sumption and living practices. We would like to stress here that, in the case of declared support and simultaneous rejection of the practical im- plementation of more sustainable consumption arrangements, there are only apparent contradictions in the respondents’ answers, as the seeming incongruence can be explained by certain socio-theoretical concepts, such as ‘passive activism’ (Gladwell, 2010, 2011).