Sustainable Transition through Circular Textile Products: An Empirical Study of Consumers' Acceptance in India

The robust Indian textile industry results in prodigious consumption followed by equivalent waste, leading to environmental deterioration. The solution is circular textile production/products (CTPs), but their existence is almost absent in the Indian market due to a lack of focus on consumers' acceptance of CTPs. To bridge the literature gap, the TPB model was extended to explore the antecedents that directly and indirectly influence consumers' attitudes and purchase intentions towards CTPs. The PLS-SEM (using Smart-PLS) was used to assess the structural model with the 409 samples collected through an online survey from the NCR of India. The findings revealed that personal benefits, environmental consciousness (except risk perception), perceived behavioral control, and subjective norms significantly and directly influence consumers' attitudes and purchase intentions towards CTPs. In addition, attitude significantly and indirectly mediates the relationship between "environmental consciousness, personal benefits (except risk perception)" and purchase intention towards CTPs. The finding offers pertinent information about the antecedents of CTPs that help the companies, marketers, and government to promote CTP acceptance and attain sustainability in the production and consumption of textile products in the Indian economy. Despite having product-specific and regional limitations, this research contributes significantly to the current literature on CTPs and their acceptance.