What Kind of Better World Are We Shopping for?: How Consumer Groups Define and Measure CSR for Ethical Consumers

As the concept of sustainability broadens to include how to grapple with the long-term social and environmental challenges of the 21^st century (climate change, economic inequality, human rights abuses, environmental degradation, etc.), individuals are increasingly questioning the role of corporations, and their own role as consumers, in the perpetuation of society’s unsustainable practices. The utilization of this economic production and consumption oriented lens has resulted in more scholarly discussions focusing on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and ethical consumerism (a.k.a. political consumerism). Despite this rise in interest, the literatures examining these two deeply connected topics remain largely separate.

This paper begins to bridge the gap between the two literatures by analyzing four of the most popular CSR rating systems constructed specifically for ethical consumers in the US (GoodGuide and Better World Shopper), UK (Ethical Consumer), and Australia (Shop Ethical). More specifically, the study analyzes how each systems defines (what counts and does not count as CSR) and then measures (using a varying mix of data from media, nonprofit, government, and corporate sources) the CSR of companies that create the goods and services that consumers most commonly. Despite their popularity with ethical consumers, these CSR rating systems have been largely ignored by scholars in both fields, and as a result, researchers now have an empirical blind spot when analyzing how consumers navigate the CSR landscape when making decisions about how to spend their money while being cognizant of its potential impacts on issues of sustainability.

Comparative content analysis (including the books, websites, and smart phone apps generated by each system) is employed to examine definitions and methodologies in order to assess levels of consensus and diversity across the systems. Of particular interest is determining how vulnerable these efforts are to greenwashing by companies themselves, which often find it more profitable to look sustainable rather than actually incorporate sustainable (and often costly) practices into their daily operations.

The specific questions this study seeks to answer include:

• How does each rating system define CSR? Which social and environmental problems are included and which are excluded? Is there some kind of tacit agreement as to what it means to be socially and environmentally responsible? How do these systems frame what it means to be “ethical” as a consumer?

• How does each rating system grapple with the increasing political role corporations are playing in their respective country’s legislative and electoral process? Are campaign contributions and lobbying efforts considered detrimental, neutral, or in specific cases, potential positives, if, for example, social problems are addressed as a result?

• How does each rating system reconcile the fundamental problem of a lack of access to verifiable CSR data? As companies are not required to release much in the way of relevant CSR data, how do the researchers make sense of the piecemeal data they do have access to?

• What methodological approach does each system take in order to measure CSR? How are the sources of data chosen, vetted, and weighted to achieve meaningful results and how do these choices build in particular biases, strengths, and weaknesses?

• How does each system deal with the question of greenwashing? For example, is potentially biased data gathered directly from companies themselves allowed into their calculations? If so, are any safeguards built-in to avoid the greenwashing of their own results?

• Do any of the systems encourage the public engagement of individuals beyond the shifts of spending that ethical consumerism calls for? In other words, is this micro-activism used as a gateway to forms of activism that involve more serious commitments or are consumers encouraged to focus only on which companies they purchase goods and services from?

In answering these questions, we can begin to assemble the threads that will weave together what we know about how companies are engaging, and how consumers are engaging, social and environmental issues. Additionally, the results will shed more light on what obstacles keep both groups from being more effective channels for engaging social problems and making significant contributions to the resolution of sustainability issues writ large.

Lacking a publically available, consistent, and accurate CSR measure, ethical consumers cannot successfully transform their collective economic power into an effective system of financial rewards and punishments for companies. Without addressing this particular piece of the puzzle (i.e. the translation of CSR for ethical consumers), the significant contribution to social change that CSR and ethical consumerism promise to deliver remains an unlikely prospect at best.