Increasing Environmental Sensitivity via Workplace Experiences

This paper focuses on the environmental and ethical attributes of food products and their production processes. These two aspects have been recently recognized and are becoming increasingly important in terms of signaling and of consumer perception. There are two relevant thematic domains: environmental and social. Within each domain there are two movements. Hence the paper first presents the four movements that have brought to the fore new aspects of food product quality, to wit: (1) aspects of environmental ethics (organic agriculture and integrated agriculture), and (2) social ethics (fair trade and ethical trade). Next, it describes how the actors in the movements (producers, retailers, NGOs, and governments) are organized and how consumers perceive each of the movements. From the perspective of the actors in the movements themselves, the movements are grouped into two ''actors' philosophies.'' The first is a ''radical'' philosophy (the organic production and fair trade movements that arose in radical opposition to conventional agriculture or unfair trade relations), and the second is a ''reformist'' philosophy (the integrated agriculture and ethical trade movements that arose as efforts to modify but not radically change conventional agriculture). From the point of view of consumers, the classification of the movements is based on perceptions of the ''domain'' of the movements. That is, consumers tend to perceive the organic production movement and the integrated agricultural movement as a single group because they both deal with the environment. By contrast, consumers tend to group the fair trade movement and the ethical trade movement together because they both deal essentially with social ethics. Recently, key players such as large retailers and agribusinesses have adopted as part of their overall quality assurance programs both environmental and ethical attributes. Their involvement in and adoption of the goals of the movements have, however, generated tensions and conflicts. This is particularly true within the radical movements, because of concerns of cooptation. Finally, the paper identifies challenges faced by those promoting food products with environmental and social/ethical attributes as they attempt to communicate coherent signals to consumers at this crucial moment in the emergence of a mass market for these products.

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“…18. The examples come from the scale used by Berger and Kanetkar (1995) and are adapted from the SRCB scale. 19.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social and environmental attributes of food products in an emerging mass market: Challenges of signaling and consumer perception, with European illustrations

2006

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“…There is a gap between the self-reported intention of buying responsibly and the evidences that this intention does not translate into personal behaviour decisions (Beckmann 2007;Berger and Kanetkar 1995;Carrigan and Attalla 2001;Linke 2002;Roberts 1996;Vermeir and Verbeke 2005).…”

Section: Obstacles When Buying Responsiblymentioning

confidence: 92%

“…In addition, consumers tend to exhibit, at most, "bounded responsibility," that is, consumers are not equally aware of, or involved with, all social issues (Beckmann 2007;Berger and Kanetkar 1995;Carrigan and Attalla 2001;De Pelsmacker et al 2005b;Friedman 1999;Garret 1987;Prasad et al 2004;Shaw and Clarke 1999;Thøgersen 1999;Valor 2007). Some citizens are willing to act to protect the environment whilst others seem more concerned about human rights abuses.…”

Section: Motivational Obstaclesmentioning

confidence: 92%

“…Consumers are aware of, and concerned about, the costs derived from purchasing responsibly, even when the perception of higher costs could be misguided. These costs include, inter alia, paying a premium price, travelling a certain distance to find good performers (e.g., organic or fair trade products), or spending too much time locating a brand at the selling point (Beckmann 2007;Berger and Kanetkar 1995;Dickson 2001;Garret 1987;Laroche et al 2001;Sen and Bhattacharya 2001;Shaw and Clarke 1999;Shaw and Shiu 2003;Uusitalo and Oksanen 2004). Previous studies have found that consumers are less likely to make a socially responsible decision if they have to make tradeoffs between price and other non-economic criteria (Carrigan and Attalla 2001;Iwanow et al 2005;Vermeir and Verbeke 2005).…”

Section: Behavioural Obstaclesmentioning

confidence: 96%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Can Consumers Buy Responsibly? Analysis and Solutions for Market Failures

Martínez

2008

J Consum Policy

121

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“…While a certain degree of spillover effects from the workplace into private social settings might occur (Berger and Kanetkar 1995;Thøgersen 1999;Thøgersen and Ölander 2003), companies that are engaged in employees' sustainable behavioural patterns as part of their CSR, for example waste management, energy consumption, or food supply, do not usually reflect on effects these organizational arrangements can have on employees' private consumption behaviour in general. Mobility management (especially concerning the route to and from work) figures as a "grey area" between private and workplace-related behaviour, meaning that such interventions often embrace private consumption patterns.…”

Section: Companies and Sustainable Consumptionmentioning

confidence: 95%