Author(s): Songyu Jiang and Ruihui Pu
In the 21st century, countries worldwide are exploring education for sustainable development and have made significant contributions. However, rarely discussed sustainable consumption behavior in the education industry. As a new form of education, the research on sustainable consumption behavior in the online education industry (SCBOEI) is still blank. The purpose of this research is to answer the dimensions and content of SCBOEI from the perspective of college students, reveal college students' cognition of SCBOEI, and conceptualize SCBOEI. To this end, the study recruited 25 college students from Chongqing's universities to participate in semi-structured in-depth interviews for data collection. The study found that the SCBOEI is related to the sustainable development of the environment, economy, and society, but it is different from the traditional industry focusing on the environment. The SCBOEI mainly involves equality (equality in education), employment, environment, several aspects of tools, in addition, it is also conducive to achieve convenience for society, creative infrastructure, economic growth, international partnership, reduce poverty, responsible for consumption, sustainable community, well-being. Therefore, the study explored the SCBOEI based on sustainable development goals (SDGs) and defined it to some extent.