ON THE ROLE AND USE OF INFORMATION IN ETHICAL CONSUMERISM

As internet-enabled technologies have spread and begun dominating our lives, humanity’s collective access to information has never been greater. Coinciding with this increased information access is a trend of increased ethical consumer practices, with constant year-on-year increases of relative spending going towards ethically produced products. This thesis explores how these two phenomena could be related, where an increase in access to information leads to ever increasing adoption of an ethical consumer mindset due to the role information plays in moral decision making. This is approached from a philosophical mindset (outlining how information is used in various formal ethical theories) in addition to primary research of self-identified ethical consumers and consumers in general. This research is carried out within a framework of direct application. By using successful behaviour change campaigns as a guide, the data pulled from primary research can be used to inform the creation of a specific campaign to increase curiosity and ethical consumption by placing findings directly into a context where they can be used for further encouragement of ethical consumption. The first piece of primary research is an Interview study of self-identified ethical consumers. A form of thematic analysis was used to piece together 4 key pieces of information: a working definition of ethical consumerism based on lived experience, the personal factors that make a person more likely to engage in ethical consumption, the situational factors that act as the final nudge towards their new behaviour, and the transitional factors that take someone from regular consumer to ethical consumer. The second piece of research is a quantitative analysis of real user shopping data provided by Co-Op Foods, observing the purchases made by over 450,000 consumers across a period of over 2 years. This study focused on one metric of ethical consumption (Fairtrade) in the areas of chocolate and coffee purchasing and compares this data to measures of relative income and educational deprivation. The comparison highlights the role of education deprivation as a predictive factor in ethical consumption. It provides a foundation on which later research can build a robust method of observing the success of initiatives to increase ethical consumption. This research demonstrates several key findings. The first is that information is a vitally important aspect in ethical consumption, rivalled only by explicit moral goals. The second is that access to education is a greater predictor of ethical consumption than income. Further contributions to academic and industry applications of this knowledge are also discussed.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

PhD

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

De Montfort University

Year dc:date.issued

2024

Author dc:creator

• BLAKE, RUAIRI

Licence

• https://dora.dmu.ac.uk/bitstreams/52669b01-afef-4822-8893-99c171effdd0/download