Sustainable future : the relationship between personality traits and the sustainable behavior of university students.

The main duty of today’s society is to reduce unsustainable practices. One of the areas for change concerns the major driver of sustainable development: sustainable consumption behavior. This study investigates the relationship between personality traits and sustainable consumption behavior amongst university students. Using the HEXACO model of personality and Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM), this research aimed to explore the influence of conscientiousness, openness to experience, honesty-humility, and agreeableness on sustainable consumption behavior. The research was conducted with 127 participants, showing that conscientiousness and openness to experience are significant and the most important drivers of sustainable consumption behavior. This study demonstrates that including elements targeted at specific personality traits in the various sustainable initiatives, such as marketing campaigns, may positively affect the change in sustainable consumption behavior among students.