Influence Of Consumer Behavior On Corporate Social...

Part I. How Consumer Behaviour has, should or could actually influence CSR issues? The current report aims to highlight the influence of consumer behaviour on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) issues and present a broad understanding of the role of sustainability in consumption by reflecting on my own personal consumption practices. For the purposes of this report, we will use the European Commission’s definition of CSR as being â€Å"the responsibility of enterprises for their impacts on society† (European Commision, 2011). Gathering several definitions, sustainable consumption can be described as a behaviour pattern of consumers towards products and services that minimizes the strain on environmental systems and take into account the†¦show more content†¦The Millenial Report also highlighted the fact that 50% of consumers perceive a company differently depending on their social performance and behaviour. In 2002, Environics International presented another study (the CSR Monitor) showing that about a third of consumers reward ethical firms and punish the unethical ones (Papafloratos, 2009). More recently, the 2010 Corporate Social Responsibility Perceptions Survey stated that more than 75% of consumers believe it is crucial for companies to be socially responsible and 55% of them are more likely to buy a product associated with a certain cause than when choosing between similar products (Burson Marsteller, 2010). There is a profusion of studies on the perceptions of CSR and sustainable consumption by consumers. They mainly focus on their awareness of the CSR concept and their willingness to join causes or pay more (for example buy organic products and pay more for fair trade goods). The polls we have previously analysed visibly detect that consumers are changing and turning into â€Å"sustainable† ones. However, several issues – such as old habits, perceived or actual characteristics of eco-friendly products and a lack of empowerment related to the feeling of not actually making a difference when purchasing fair trade goods – lead to the attitude-behaviour gap: green consumers are in fact a very small minority when we take into account actual behaviour instead of awareness