When Trust and Distrust Come Into Play: How Green Concern, Scepticism and Communication Affect Customers' Behaviour?

ABSTRACT What happens when already sceptical customers start questioning company communication? Encouraged by the vague answers to this question, our study extends existing knowledge about the effects of customers' environmental concern, scepticism and communication on green purchasing intention (GPI) and green purchasing behaviour (GPB) across environmentally controversial industries—namely, textile and clothing and food industries. Using our own primary data collected in November 2023 and covering 1001 customers in the Czech Republic, where the issue of sustainability is generally on the back burner, we show that customers' increased environmental concern can completely change the relationship between environmental scepticism and GPI, thereby leading to positive effects. What is interesting and new is the finding that trust and distrust can act as significant mediators of the relationships investigated thus far. Moreover, as soon as customers start to examine companies' practices and their credibility in more detail, the previously positive relationship between environmental communication and GPI can become negative.