THE PATHWAY TO REGENERATIVE CONSUMPTION: EVIDENCE FROM MINIMALISM ORIENTATION, SUSTAINABLE LIFESTYLE VALUES, AND ECOLOGICAL RESPONSIBILITY

Abstract

As resource extraction, waste, and emissions continue to strain planetary systems, understanding what drives consumers toward regenerative rather than merely reductive consumption has become a pressing concern for marketing scholarship. While minimalism orientation and sustainable lifestyle values have each been linked separately to various pro-environmental outcomes, their combined influence on regenerative consumption—choices that actively restore ecological and social systems through repair, reuse, and locally sourced alternatives—remains empirically underexplored, particularly through a shared psychological mechanism. This study addresses that gap by testing a parallel-mediation structural model in which minimalism orientation and sustainable lifestyle values act as dual antecedents of regenerative consumption, with ecological responsibility serving as the connecting mediator. Survey data were collected from 400 adult consumers in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa/Swat region of Pakistan and analyzed using structural equation modeling in AMOS, with confirmatory factor analysis validating the measurement model and bootstrapped estimates testing indirect effects. All seven hypothesized paths were supported. Sustainable lifestyle values emerged as the stronger predictor, exerting both a robust direct effect on regenerative consumption and a substantial indirect effect through ecological responsibility, while minimalism orientation contributed smaller but significant direct and indirect effects. Ecological responsibility proved the strongest single predictor of regenerative consumption overall, confirming its role as a partial mediating mechanism for both antecedents. These findings extend value-based environmental psychology beyond conventional green purchasing to a more demanding restorative behavioral outcome, offering marketers and policymakers in Pakistan and similar South Asian markets evidence-based guidance for designing responsibility-focused communication strategies.