Examining The Environmental Behaviors of Sports Consumers: The Effect of Green Marketing Tools

Growing environmental awareness among consumers and corporate environmental responsibility prompt enterprises to pay more attention to green operations. Green practices, such as green product development (GPD) and green marketing strategies, affect the sustainability of a supply chain. The purpose of this research was to investigate the environmental behaviors of sports consumers with the effects of showing green. In fact, the increase in society's knowledge of environmental issues has led to an increase in concern and sensitivity in them, and has made continuous evaluation of products based on green criteria necessary. In such a situation, organizations succeed in selling their products that, in addition to producing green goods, also have a good reputation in protecting the environment. As a result, paying attention to the green attitudes of the society, in the design and implementation of the organization's strategies, is one of the important issues of today's societies. Given that traditional marketing emphasizes the demands of customers too much and does not consider social welfare and environmental issues. This issue has entered all dimensions of organizations and affected marketing and led to the emergence of the concept of green marketing (Abad Askari, 2014). Green marketing tools include environmental advertising, environmental branding, and environmental labels, which lead to better understanding and raising the level of awareness about the characteristics of green products, thereby leading people to buy environmentally friendly products. The use of these tools plays an important role in relation to consumer purchasing behavior in purchasing products compatible with the environment, thus leading to a reduction in the harmful effects of products with synthetic compounds (Rahbar & Abdul Wahid, 2011).
Environmental deterioration has become a key topic of concern for researchers and researchers around the world, and many people seek to solve environmental problems (Wang et al., 2016). This positive sensitivity has intensified to the point that even the industrial owners are trying to use it to take an effective step towards the acceptance of the product offered to customers and to use environmental considerations as a competitive advantage (Dube & Gawande, 2016).
Today, the sports industry is considered one of the most important industries in the world as well as in our country, and currently there are a large number of factories producing sports equipment in the country, most of them have traditional adaptations, and their activities sometimes cause environmental pollution. Therefore, a mechanism should be arranged so that the sports equipment production industry moves towards green production.
A descriptive survey and field research with the statistical population of all the professors and students of physical education in the universities of Isfahan province (Islamic Free Universities of Najaf Abad, Mobarakeh, Isfahan (Khorasgan) and Isfahan University) were consumers of sports equipment. The sample was determined based on Cochran's formula (for indeterminate population) , 368 people. Information about green brands was collected by Rahbar & Abdul Wahid (2011) questionnaire. Abdol Rashid's (2009) questionnaire was used to collect information about consumers. Validity and reliability of both questionnaires were confirmed. To analyze the data obtained from the collection of questionnaires, structural equation modeling is used with AMOS software, and SPSS software is used to use Levine and ANOVA tests. The findings showed that first, environmental advertising tools (0.49) have an impact on the buying behavior of sports equipment consumers. Second, the green brand tool (0.41) has an impact on consumer consumption. Third, the green label tool had the most impact (0.38) on consumers' behavior, but for low consumption consumer purchases. These results were obtained at the alpha level of 0.01. In order to improve the environment, it is better for consumers to have an increased use of a green product and for consumers to obtain a better benefit for consuming vegetables.
In this research, to collect information about the green marketing variable, from Rahbar & Abdul Wahid (2011) questionnaire which has 14 questions and in the form of three components of environmental advertising (4 questions), green brand (5 questions) and green label (5 questions). Designed, used. This questionnaire was used in the research of Chegini Maal & Saleh Ardestani (2015) and its validity and reliability were confirmed. In the current research, content and face validity were examined and confirmed using experts' opinions, as well as construct validity through confirmatory factor analysis. Only for the green brand construct in the green marketing tools questionnaire, alpha was below 0.7, which was corrected by removing item 8 (question 8 from the green marketing tools questionnaire). The reliability of this questionnaire in this research was also calculated through Cronbach's alpha and confirmed as 0.86. Also, Cronbach's alpha was calculated for each component, and all of them were above 0.7 and were accepted. Considering the effect of environmental advertising as a green marketing tool on the behavior of consumers of sports equipment, it is possible to introduce the consumer to environmentally friendly products with a low cost and an effective method, and the advantages of using such products can be repeated to the consumer continuously. . In order to increase the effect of environmental advertising tools on green purchasing, it is suggested that the effects of environmental degradation are continuously placed by municipalities at the city level to promote environmental conservation. Relevant advertising posters should be thought-provoking and enigmatic. Social media should be used more to promote green products. According to the general findings of the research, it can be concluded that green marketing creates a level playing field with competitors. According to the opinion of consumers, manufacturers should consolidate their position in the competitive position by re-engineering the production processes and design of goods and services, otherwise they will be left behind from the green train. More people's concern about environmental issues has made consumers act consciously to make their purchase decisions and choose products that do not harm the environment. But these consumers also need information to make these decisions, so it is recommended that an organization or non-governmental organizations be formed and work in line with green life and set their goals on familiarizing people with green laws and providing information in this field.
It is necessary to explain that this research was conducted at the level of professors and students of physical education in Isfahan province and its generalization to the larger society requires other applied researches and since in all the discussions and conclusions of this research, the influence of the media Collectively, it is suggested to carry out research on the influence of mass media on buying green and the behavior of fans of different sports as green consumers. It is also suggested that future researchers design the future scenarios of green marketing in sports. One of the limitations was not discussing online marketing or green e-commerce; It is suggested that future researchers present a model for green sports consumer behavior based on new e-commerce approaches, for example (C2B).