The Intersection between Environmentally Friendly Consumption Behavior and Students' Ability to Utilize Information and Technology in Accelerating the National Green Economy

Abstract

Realizing a green economy in Indonesia can be achieved through environmentally friendly consumption starting with the younger generation. Students as part of consumers need to apply environmentally friendly consumption patterns as a contribution to the national green economy. This study seeks to analyze how the variables of insight into food and beverages, attitudes towards environmentally friendly consumption behavior, the tendency of environmentally friendly consumption behavior, IT technical and operational skills, IT navigation and processing skills, and IT communication skills influence each other. The further objective of this research is that students are expected to be able to realize green economic awareness with environmentally friendly consumption behavior. In this study, using descriptive quantitative methods with the SEM-PLS method analyzed using primary data of 300 active students at four state universities in Malang City by distributing online questionnaires through G-Form. The results showed that the food and beverage insight variable had an effect on IT ordering ability, the environmentally friendly consumption behavior tendency variable had an effect on IT navigation and process skills through the mediating variable of food and beverage insight, the navigation ability variable had a direct effect on the attitude of environmentally friendly consumption behavior,  and the IT technical and operational ability variable had a direct effect on the environmentally friendly consumption behavior tendency and IT communication skills. Implicatively, the research results link the two major variables of IT capability and green consumption behavior. However, if spread out, both IT capabilities and student behavior in implementing environmentally friendly consumption are mutually sustainable to achieve a green economy.