Sustainability education and consumer response to sustainability-framed marketing communication

Higher education may affect how future consumers interpret sustainability claims, yet little research investigates whether sustainability-related coursework relates to later responses to marketing communication messages. Building primarily on Transformative Learning Theory, this research examines how sustainability-focused educational exposure relates to perceived consumer effectiveness (PCE), with implications for sustainable consumption intentions and responses to sustainability-framed marketing communication. Study 1 uses an exploratory survey of students at two U.S. public universities with differing levels of reported sustainability curricular exposure. Greater reported exposure was associated with higher PCE and stronger self-reported responsible consumption intentions, with PCE mediating that association. Study 2 uses a 2 × 2 experiment with students from four U.S. public universities to test whether brief sustainability-focused training changes how they respond to sustainability-framed advertising appeals. Students who received the training reported higher purchase intentions for a sustainability-framed advertisement than for a conventional advertisement, whereas this difference did not emerge among students who did not receive the training. Together, the findings suggest that sustainability education can serve as a pre-marketplace context that informs how consumers interpret and respond to sustainability-framed marketing communication.