How the Green Marketing Mix Shapes Sustainable Consumption: Consumer Skepticism as a Multilevel Mediator in Saudi Arabia

This study examines the effects of the green marketing mix, which comprises green products, pricing, distribution, and promotion, on sustainable consumption behavior, mediated by consumer skepticism in Saudi Arabia. In response to the lack of empirical data in Middle Eastern markets, this study contributes to sustainability and marketing theory by incorporating the Theory of Planned Behavior, Attribution Theory, and Signaling Theory into a multilevel analytical framework. Firm-level data gathered at the firm level on green marketing practices were obtained from marketing managers, whereas individual-level data on consumer skepticism and sustainability-related consumption behavior were obtained from university students. The respondents refused to provide 550 valid responses within 50 firms using purposive sampling. Multilevel structural equation modeling (MSEM) was conducted using Mplus software. The results show that consumer skepticism is strongly influenced by all dimensions of the green marketing mix, with green promotion and green distribution having the most considerable impact. Consumer skepticism is a decisive mediated factor, which implies that green marketing strategies yield sustainable consumption, which boils down to the elimination of consumer skepticism towards claims about the environment. Although the green marketing mix has direct impacts on sustainable consumption, the impact of skepticism is significantly large at the individual and firm levels. The present research provides new theoretical inputs through the empirical validation of the concept of consumer skepticism as a key psychological process that connects the scope of green marketing strategy and behavioral changes in the sustainability environment. In practice, the results would support the fact that open promotion and trustworthy distribution procedures are essential for organizations trying to promote sustainable consumption as part of Saudi Arabia Vision 2030.