Consumer's attitude, socio-demographic variables and willingness to purchase green housing in Israel

Green construction is a construction method that utilizes resources such as energy, water and soil more efficiently, maintaining low levels of pollution, hence contributing to the conservation of the environment. Although the additional costs of arising of green building application is relatively low, it is not yet common practice in Israel, with most of the real estate projects using traditional building methods. Given that if the demand to green building would increase, most developers will have to adopt green building, the fact that most projects still implement traditional building methods indicates that the public has not yet adopted the notion that green building is profitable. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine barriers of consumer preference in a green living and to investigate correlations between conceptual variables policy and socio-demographic variables and tendency to prefer green housing. To this end, a research consisting of three experiments was set. The first experiment involved 554 participants, who were assigned to one of three news articles (framing manipulation). The participants were asked to choose between a green and a regular apartment (12 photographs). The second experiment involved 308 participants, who were assigned to one article regarding regulatory policy. The third experiment involved 123 participants and was conducted in order to examine the effect of conceptual variables and various policy proposals on tendency to prefer green housing. In experiment 1, socio-demographic variables were not correlated with participants' willingness to choose green housing. The consumer's attitude regarding ethical behavior, however, had a significant correlation with GAPI index (Green Apartment Purchasing Intention). When the framing presented the green apartment as attractive from a personal economic point of view, participants were more likely to prefer green housing. In experiment 2, no correlation was found between economic variables and willingness to choose green housing. In experiment 3, a link between environmentally aware behavior and a tendency to choose green housing was found. This study shows no correlations between socio-demographic factors and preference of a green apartment. Behavioral-cognitive variables were correlated throughout the analysis. The main factors influencing participants choice were the additional costs, proposed policy and economic savings. Being able to draw conclusions into the real environment is a limitation. In conclusion, willingness to choose a green apartment does not stem from socio-demographic or socioeconomic characteristics. People with low environmental awareness perceive the “green selection” as the wrong choice. Green building framing has an impact on the willingness to purchase a green apartment.