Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility: Effects on Business Performance

One of the most representative industries relatively to ethical consumption is the apparel industry. Indeed, the concerns among sustainability have progressively increased among apparel companies, in response to an increased public pressure, especially towards large and public companies (Park-Poaps, 2010).
Many brands have adopted strategies inspired by ethics; some examples are Nike, Adidas, Gap, Timberland. Another example is Patagonia, which has included environmental sustainability in its unique competitive position since its foundation (Dickson et al., 2009).
A branch of research about ethical consumption has specifically focused on the apparel purchase decision. Ha-Brookshire and Norum (2011), starting from the already seen assumption of the intention-behaviour gap, found that, in general, consumers were willing to pay an extra 5$ for an organic cotton t-shirt priced 30$. Likewise, the study conducted by Shen et al. (2012) generally supported the findings about a higher willingness to pay for sustainable fashion.
However, the former study highlighted the importance of other factors (e.g. price, product characteristics, etc.) in addition to ethical issues, while the latter emphasised how consumer unawareness of ethical products hampered the actual ethical purchasing.
Therefore, in accordance with the previous discussion, ethics can potentially be a discriminating factor in the apparel purchasing decision. However, companies, in order to appeal consumers with their ‘ethical offer’, should, firstly, add ethical features to other product features without sacrificing the latter for the former and, secondly and most importantly, should increase consumer awareness towards ethical issues while also informing public opinion.