Walking the Talk on Sustainability: Consumer Perceptions on Retail Brand Equity Drivers

This paper investigates how traditional and sustainability drivers influence customer-based retail brand equity (RBE). The work integrates brand awareness (BA) and perceived quality (PQ) with a second-order construct, sustainable brand associations (SBA), which captures consumers’ environmental (ES) and social (SS) perceptions of retailers. Data were collected via an online questionnaire administered to 599 Italian grocery shoppers recruited from social networks. Multi-item Likert scale was used, and the proposed model was tested using structural equation modeling (SEM). The analysis confirms that ES and SS jointly build SBA, which, in turn, enhances RBE. BA is the strongest direct antecedent of RBE, while PQ has slightly meaningful effect in this highly commoditized category. Overall, the findings underscore the importance of both traditional brand salience and credible sustainability positioning for strengthening retailer’s brand equity. This study contributes to Consumer-Based Brand Equity (CBBE) theory by demonstrating the added value of sustainability cues and provides retailers with practical advice on combining awareness campaigns with visible social and environmental initiatives.