Do mindful consumers matter to sustainability?

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate effects of university social responsibility and consumer mindfulness on consumer sustainable consumption (SC) intention. This study also explores the role of quality of relationship (QR) between university students and their universities in the relationship between university social responsibility and SC intention. Design/methodology/approach Stakeholder theory provides the fundamentals of theoretical relationships between variables in developing the research hypotheses. Statistical analyses, such as OLS regression, analysis of variance (ANOVA) and conditional PROCESS analysis using 250 self-reported data as a sample from different places in the USA, support the research hypotheses. Findings The empirical results demonstrate that university social responsibility has a positive impact on forming sustainable consumption intention, and more specifically, the higher QR consumers’ group is more mindfully intent on having SC intention than the other group. These results pave theoretical and practical contributions of this study. Originality/value This study contributes to understanding and measuring sustainability by discovering the impacts of university social responsibility and consumer mindfulness on SC intention. The study additionally explored the role of relationship between consumers and higher education institutions in the relationship between variables, such as university social responsibility, consumer mindfulness and SC intention in the context of stakeholder theory.