Ethical consumerism, an introduction

Modern dynamics of consumerism substantially changed in the last decades. Nowadays, consumers are not simply led by economic choices when purchasing services or products.
In a context of globally interconnected economies, it is more and more evident that ethical and moral principles play a determinant role in the choices of consumers.

Awareness campaigns developed by charities and associations informed consumers on a number of cruel and aberrant processes used by companies to develop and sell goods involving the exploitation of natural resources, as well as, the killing and testing on animals to produce for example cosmetics, and animal derived products like eggs, milk, meat.

Companies are becoming aware of this orientation of consumers and proper communication is vital to keep consumers informed on the efforts made, by small as multinational firms to cope with the rise sensitivity of buyers in a growing number of industrial sectors ranging from food to financial services and clothing.

 Excerpt from Ethical Consumer Markets Report 2013

In addition, the phenomenon of ethical consumerism is twofold. On one side consumers reckon and award the efforts of those companies that favor the inclusion of fair procedures and processing in the production and delivery of their goods and  services.  On the other side, consumers boycott those companies that are infringing deliberately human rights, labour standards, pursuing tax avoidance and so on

 Excerpt from Ethical Consumer Markets Report 2013

It is worth noting that, in the period under review, tax avoidance by companies had grown to become the second most cited reasons for boycotting after human rights.