Awareness, motivation, and barriers to ethical consumption in the UK and Japan

Abstract

Ethical consumerism has gained momentum over the past three decades as an increasing number of consumers worldwide became aware of long-lasting negative consequences of traditional capitalism, including environmental damage, labour exploitation, and social inequality. The bulk of research in this field has long concentrated on the countries in the West despite needs for understanding ethical consumption movement in other countries to keep up with rapid globalisation of consumer markets and business operations. The present study compares ethical consumers and their shopping behaviours in the UK and Japan, aiming to detect elements which aide expansion of ethical consumerism especially in Japan, where size of relevant market is significantly smaller than in the UK, which is a leading fair-trade market in the world. Literature review on the topic is followed by examination of demographic influence as well as motivation and barriers to ethical consumption based on online survey in the subject countries. The findings include irrelevance of age, income, and family structure to ethical awareness and shopping habits, presence of altruism and self-interest in ethical consumption, nuanced difference in motivation and barriers in two countries, and consumers’ dependency on companies’ and governments’ initiatives to promote ethical consumption.