Environmental Sustainability Communication in the Oil Industry - The effects on attitudes and purchase intentions

Abstract: Global environmental issues concern a growing number of people and businesses are expected to communicate efforts towards environmental sustainability. Due to the controversial nature of its business practices and contribution to environmental problems, the oil industry holds a poor reputation and is considered to have a special need to communicate their efforts towards more sustainable business practices. The purpose of this thesis is to increase the understanding of how people perceive communication about environmental sustainability published by oil companies. Further, we aim to examine how these perceptions affect people’s attitudes towards oil companies and the resulting purchase intentions. After reviewing the relevant literature related to the topic of interest, the Hierarchy of Effects Model has been identified as appropriate for fulfilling the purpose of this thesis as it allows a systematic evaluation of the communication effectiveness of an oil company’s environmental claims on people’s attitudes and purchase intentions. The use of the model is twofold. Firstly, it has been used for both designing the questionnaire of this study and secondly, it functions as a framework for analysing the collected data. The study shows that the impact of environmental sustainability communication on people’s attitudes and purchase intentions is limited and controversial. People have expressed that they wish oil companies to engage in environmentally sustainable activities, however, respective communication is questioned in terms of credibility and trust, and is approached with scepticism. Moreover, people do not develop a significant more favourable attitudes and purchase intentions due to oil companies communicating environmental sustainability efforts.