Personal values that drive the choice for green apartments in Nanjing China: the limited role of environmental values

Whether environmental values are helpful to stimulate people’s pro-environmental behaviour is a debatable issue, in particular when it comes to purchasing green dwellings. This article employs the means-end theory to explore whether environmental values matter in green home-buying in Nanjing China. It systematically compares two groups of home-buyers. The target group bought a green apartment and the control group a conventional one. We investigated the differences between these two groups in the relative importance and underlying personal values of six green attributes: energy and water efficiency, thermal and sound insulation, ventilation and non-toxic construction materials. Results show that not only conventional but also green residents have limited environmental values, and that health and comfort are the important values driving consumers’ green choices. Raising environmental values might be less effective than expected to persuade consumers to buy green apartments. Policy makers might consider stressing health and comfort of green apartments to up-scale green construction.