Electrical and electronic equipment repair in a circular economy: Investigating consumer behaviour in Hong Kong

The circular practice of repair extends the lifetime of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) and thus decreases their environmental impact. This investigation centres on Hong Kong, which features a high per-capita consumption of electronics, and explores what factors drive consumer behaviour intention to repair EEE. In terms of materials, a Likert-scaled questionnaire survey was conducted among Hong Kong consumers (n = 609). This data was treated via an extended model of the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) incorporating the factors ‘awareness of consequences’, ‘environmental concern ‘and ‘policy concern’. The extended TPB model features a strong predictive power (54 %) for behavioural intention to repair, on which environmental concern (β = 0.473***) and perceived behavioural control (β = 0.224***) had the strongest influence. Policy concern (β = 0.068ns), however, turned out to be statistically insignificant. This provides critical insights on the factors that policy and research need to further explore for strengthening circular economic consumer behaviour in Hong Kong.