Background: The clothing industry is guilty of environmental destruction, at the same time consumers and more specifically Swedish millennials have shown increasing concern for the environment. Those favorable environmental attitudes and concerns has however in some green contexts shown to not affect the intention to buy green products which might suggest that there exists a so-called attitude-intention gap. There is a lot of uncertainty concerning why this attitude-intention gap may exist and what factors that may have an influence on the consumer’s green purchasing criteria. Purpose: The purpose of the study was to first reveal if there exists an attitude-intention gap among Swedish millennials when it comes to purchasing green clothing products. Secondly, the study investigated the determinants that influence the intention to buy green clothing products among Swedish millennials. Methodology: The study used a deductive and quantitative research approach by conducting an online survey which was distributed with a non-probability convenience sampling technique as well as with a snowball sampling technique towards Swedish millennials. The survey resulted in 150 valid responses which was quantitatively analyzed. Findings: The findings revealed that there exists an attitude-intention gap among Swedish millennials when it comes to the context of green clothing products. The most influential determinants affecting the intention to buy green clothes were: Knowledge about green clothing products, followed by habits of buying traditional clothing products and then the subjective norm. Additionally, gender differences among majority of the determinants were identified. Implications: The findings provide suggestions for decision makers marketing green clothing products to focus on increasing the knowledge among consumers as well as easing the process of changing old purchasing habits. Furthermore, it is of value for Swedish policymakers whom with this knowledge know where to concentrate their focus and resources in order to spur the green consumption. Originality: This paper contributes to theory by applying the well-known TPB framework with the addition of personal and situational determinants on the context of green clothing products. Furthermore, new insights regarding what determinants that affects the intention to buy green clothing products when it comes to the context of Swedish millennials were found.

Klädindustrin är en av världens mest förorenade industrier och har en stor negativ miljöpåverkan. Medvetenheten och intresset av miljöfrågor ökar samtidigt som det finns en ovilja hos konsumenter att köpa hållbara produkter, vilket kallas ”det gröna gapet”. En ökad förståelse för det gröna gapet tillåter företag att arbeta på ett mer specifikt sätt mot sina tillväxtmål utifrån behovet av en mer hållbar konsumtion inom och mellan nationer. Däremot finns det en bristfällig kunskap kring hållbarhet avseende kulturens inflytande i miljömedvetna attityder och värderingar samt verkningsgraden i marknadsföringsstrategier som bidrar till att minska det gröna gapet. Syftet med studien är att öka förståelsen för det gröna gapet avseende hållbar klädkonsumtion i studiens forskningsländer Sverige, Ungern och Marocko, samt undersöka skillnader och/eller likheter för huruvida konsumenter i dessa nationskulturer konsumerar hållbart avseende kläder. Studien är kvalitativ och bygger på en tvärkulturell flerfallsstudie, där primärdata grundades i 15 semistrukturerade intervjuer. Studien har visat följande slutsatser: Det saknas en konsensus kring definitionen av hållbar klädkonsumtion inom och mellan forskningsländerna, vilket leder till det gröna gapet. Forskningsländernas beteenden går i linje med Hofstedes undersökningsresultat, medan deras värderingar både bekräftar och motsäger teorin. Skillnaderna mellan forskningsländernas konsumtionsbeteende beror på ländernas förhållningssätt till Hofstedes kulturdimensioner, där den största skillnaden är att svenskar konsumerar kläder hållbart utifrån medvetna val, ungerska konsumenter konsumerar utifrån second hand och marockaner konsumerar kläder via klädbyten. Likheten mellan forskningsländernas konsumtionsbeteende är att konsumera kläder utifrån deras kvalitet och tidlöshet. Avseende hållbar klädkonsumtion värderas egoistiska värderingar samt funktionella och estetiska värden högst bland samtliga länder vare sig kläderna är hållbart producerade eller inte. Studien tillför ett teoretiskt bidrag till den företagsekonomiska forskningen samt ett praktiskt bidrag till marknadschefer i deras beslutsfattande kopplat till att utveckla företagets verksamhet och nå ut till klädkonsumenter för att minimera det gröna gapet. / The clothing industry is one of the world's most polluted industries and has a huge negative impact on the environment. Awareness and interest in environmental issues are increasing while consumers are unwilling to buy sustainable clothes. This reluctance is referred to as “the green gap”. The purpose of the study is to expand the understanding of the green gap regarding sustainable clothing consumption in Sweden, Hungary and Morocco from a consumer perspective, and to investigate differences and/or similarities for whether consumers in these national cultures consume sustainably regarding clothing. This qualitative study is based on a cross-cultural multiple-case study with an abductive approach. The study's primary data is based on 15 semi-structured interviews. The study showed that there is no consensus on the definition of sustainable clothing consumption within and between the research countries, which leads to the green gap. The differences between the consumption behavior of each research country are due to how the countries stand in relation to Hofstede's cultural dimensions; Swedes consume clothes sustainably based on conscious choices, Hungarians mainly consume clothes via second hand and Moroccans consume clothes via clothing swap. Regarding sustainable clothing consumption, egotistical, functional and aesthetic values are valued highest among all countries, whether the clothes are sustainably produced or not. The greatest similarity between the research countries is that consumption is based on the quality and timelessness of the clothes. The study adds a theoretical contribution to business economics research as well as a practical contribution to marketing managers in their decision-making linked to developing their business and reaching out to clothing consumers to minimize the green gap.

Despite enormous efforts and investments, the efficiency of InGaN-based green and yellow-green light emitters remains relatively low, and that limits progress in developing full color display, laser diodes, and bright light sources for general lighting. The low efficiency of light emitting devices in the green-to-yellow spectral range, also known as the “Green Gap”, is considered a global concern in the LED industry. The polar c-plane orientation of GaN, which is the mainstay in the LED industry, suffers from polarization-induced separation of electrons and hole wavefunctions (also known as the “quantum confined Stark effect”) and low indium incorporation efficiency that are the two main factors that contribute to the Green Gap phenomenon. One possible approach that holds promise for a new generation of green and yellow light emitting devices with higher efficiency is the deployment of nonpolar and semi-polar crystallographic orientations of GaN to eliminate or mitigate polarization fields. In theory, the use of other GaN planes for light emitters could also enhance the efficiency of indium incorporation compared to c-plane. In this thesis, I present a systematic exploration of the suitable GaN orientation for future lighting technologies. First, in order to lay the groundwork for further studies, it is important to discuss the analysis of processes limiting LED efficiency and some novel designs of active regions to overcome these limitations. Afterwards, the choice of nonpolar orientations as an alternative is discussed. For nonpolar orientation, the (1-100)-oriented (m-plane) structures on patterned Si (112) and freestanding m-GaN are studied. The semi-polar orientations having substantially reduced polarization field are found to be more promising for light-emitting diodes (LEDs) owing to high indium incorporation efficiency predicted by theoretical studies. Thus, the semi-polar orientations are given close attention as alternatives for future LED technology. One of the obstacles impeding the development of this technology is the lack of suitable substrates for high quality materials having semi-polar and nonpolar orientations. Even though the growth of free-standing GaN substrates (homoepitaxy) could produce material of reasonable quality, the native nonpolar and semi-polar substrates are very expensive and small in size. On the other hand, GaN growth of semi-polar and nonpolar orientations on inexpensive, large-size foreign substrates (heteroepitaxy), including silicon (Si) and sapphire (Al2O3), usually leads to high density of extended defects (dislocations and stacking faults). Therefore, it is imperative to explore approaches that allow the reduction of defect density in the semi-polar GaN layers grown on foreign substrates. In the presented work, I develop a cost-effective preparation technique of high performance light emitting structures (GaN-on-Si, and GaN-on-Sapphire technologies). Based on theoretical calculations predicting the maximum indium incorporation efficiency at θ ~ 62º (θ being the tilt angle of the orientation with respect to c-plane), I investigate (11-22) and (1-101) semi-polar orientations featured by θ = 58º and θ = 62º, respectively, as promising candidates for green emitters. The (11-22)-oriented GaN layers are grown on planar m-plane sapphire, while the semi-polar (1-101) GaN are grown on patterned Si (001). The in-situ epitaxial lateral overgrowth techniques using SiNx nanoporous interlayers are utilized to improve the crystal quality of the layers. The data indicates the improvement of photoluminescence intensity by a factor of 5, as well as the improvement carrier lifetime by up to 85% by employing the in-situ ELO technique. The electronic and optoelectronic properties of these nonpolar and semi-polar planes include excitonic recombination dynamics, optical anisotropy, exciton localization, indium incorporation efficiency, defect-related optical activities, and some challenges associated with these new technologies are discussed. A polarized emission from GaN quantum wells (with a degree of polarization close to 58%) with low non-radiative components is demonstrated for semi-polar (1-101) structure grown on patterned Si (001). We also demonstrated that indium incorporation efficiency is around 20% higher for the semi-polar (11-22) InGaN quantum wells compared to its c-plane counterpart. The spatially resolved cathodoluminescence spectroscopy demonstrates the uniform distribution of indium in the growth plane. The uniformity of indium is also supported by the relatively low exciton localization energy of Eloc = 7meV at 15 K for these semi-polar (11-22) InGaN quantum wells compared to several other literature reports on c-plane. The excitons are observed to undergo radiative recombination in the quantum wells in basal-plane stacking faults at room temperature. The wurtzite/zincblende electronic band-alignment of BSFs is proven to be of type II using the time-resolved differential transmission (TRDT) method. The knowledge of band alignment and degree of carrier localization in BSFs are extremely important for evaluating their effects on device properties. Future research for better understanding and potential developments of the semi-polar LEDs is pointed out at the end.