Thoughts about Consumer Ethics.
Johannes Brinkmann
Norwegian School of Management BI
Paper in progress for presentation
at the Marketing Ethics Seminar at Notre Dame University1
May 2005
johannes.brinkmann@bi.no, http://www.bi.no/users/fgl92025
533557309 page 1
Abstract
Consumer ethics is an underdeveloped subspecialty under business and marketing ethics. Within
consumer ethics, most publications have focused on bad rather than on good ethics, on consumer
dishonesty rather than on consumer idealism or consumer responsibility. This paper takes a closer
look at the latter perspective, and suggests to incorporate similar research streams which have
been marketed under different labels, such as consumer citizenship and political consumerism.
The key terms for future conceptual and model development should be consumer decisionmaking, life-style, moral intensity, perhaps with decision rules and intention development in
addition. Empirical consumer ethics research is of crucial importance if one’s ambition is not
only to criticize, but also to change gaps between ideals and realities. Consumer behavior and
marketing are highly interdependent; consumer ethics and marketing ethics are as well. At its end,
this paper discusses and illustrates such a view, here as elsewhere in the paper with reference to
fair trade initiatives.
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Introduction
“Business ethics as an academic field deals mainly with moral criticism (or self-criticism) of
business behavior. Within a market economy, business behavior is not independent from
consumer behavior and consumer acceptance. Perhaps, there is even some justice, i.e. that
businesses get the consumers they deserve and vice versa. Rather than criticizing business alone
(as consumer activists tend to) or passing on the blame to the market and to the consumers (as
businesses tend to) it seems more fruitful to consider issues such as fair trade, social and
environmental sustainability on the one hand and consumer dishonesty on the other as a shared
responsibility of business and consumers...” (Brinkmann, 2004, p. 129, slightly modified).2
Imagine one wanted to look at and contribute to fair trade, in one’s role as a consumer
with ideals or at least with a bad conscience, or as a marketing expert with ideals or at
least with a bad conscience, or as a researcher, without either one. As a consumer, one
could use fair trade labels as a purchase decision criterion, without or with asking for
some additional information, on the package or on various websites. As a marketer one
could say this is just another routine assignment where the marketing toolbox, hopefully,
can help with furthering a, hopefully, good cause. As a researcher one could probably
help both consumers and marketers with collecting and scrutinizing information, with
making better consumer and/or marketing decisions.3 This paper takes a detour. Before
offering research to the fair traders, fair trade is used as an illustration for a better
understanding of consumer ethicalness and consumer responsibility. Hopefully, such a
detour can also be interesting and helpful to the fair traders, in the long run.
This paper is organized the following way. First, relevant terminology and frames
of reference will be presented. Then, critical questions of empirical description and
understanding will be addressed. Throughout this paper, Ethical shopping and Fair trade
initiatives will serve as an illustration. Since such initiatives invite shoppers to take moral
co-responsibility in practice, for the consequences of shopping behavior, i.e. for how
other people, animals and natural environments are affected, directly or indirectly.
533557309 page 3
Business and Consumer Ethics, Corporate and Consumer Social Responsibility
"Ethics most often refers to a domain of inquiry, a discipline, in which matters of right and
wrong, good and evil, virtue and vice, are systematically examined. Morality, by contrast, is most
often used to refer not to a discipline but to patterns of thought and action that are actually
operative in everyday life. In this sense, morality is what the discipline of ethics is about. And so
business morality is what business ethics is about." (K. E. Goodpaster, 1992, p. 111, author’s
italics)4
Corporate social responsibility refers to an organization’s obligation to maximize its positive
impact on stakeholders ... and to minimize its negative impact. There are four kinds of social
responsibility: legal, ethical, economic and philanthropic...” (Ferrell et al., 2002, p. 73, author’s
italics).
It is not always easy to distinguish between Business Ethics and its close academic
neighbor, Corporate Social Responsibility (quite often abbreviated as CSR). Business
Ethics and CSR overlap, both in teaching and in research, and almost compete and
threaten to conquer each other.5 Independently of such overlap and competition,
consumer ethics and consumer social responsibility can be conceptualized in both
terminological traditions. One alternative is to develop such a consumer focus as an
applied or role ethics for consumers, the other one to replicate corporate social
responsibility as consumer social responsibility. And the alternatives are not mutually
exclusive. Repeating some of the references given above, one could focus on possible
moral obligations of consumers, and/or on positive and negative consequences of
consumer behavior, and/or perhaps on the importance of wise consumer behavior for a
best possible quality of life in a best possible world, and/or perhaps let the rightness and
goodness of consumer behavior depend on what an imagined fair and open dialogue
would conclude, carried out among “all” parties affected.
There is already a research field called ‘Consumer ethics’, as a label for
describing, understanding and praising or criticising consumers, for consumer behaviour
as moral behavior. Compared to other topics in the fields of business ethics and
533557309 page 4
marketing ethics there are not many publications about consumer ethics (Brinkmann,
2004). In his state-of-the-art paper, Scott Vitell claims that consumer ethics has one main
“theoretical research” model, the Hunt-Vitell model (1993) and one main “empirical
research” tradition, with the Muncy-Vitell Consumer ethics scale6 (1992) as a common
denominator (Vitell, 2003, pp. 34-35). S. Vitell’s implicit claim of having invented,
developed and dominated this specialty field is probably correct.7 Among the few
publications about consumer ethics, most seem to deal with “consumers as the bad guys”
and clearly less with “consumers as the potentially good guys”. For not overlooking such
a distinction, we suggest to distinguish between Consumer Dishonesty as a label for the
former and Consumer Social Responsibility as a label for the latter research tradition.
Within the latter tradition, a few empirical studies have dealt with consumer behavior as
voting behavior or more generally with socially responsible consumer behavior in the
meaning of consumer idealism (see e.g. van Kenhove et al., 2001). In such a context, the
present paper suggests a relatively stronger focus on further developing the latter topic,
consumer social responsibility. A quick way of clarifying a concept of consumer social
responsibility could be simply to define consumer social responsibility in analogy to the
four dimensions of corporate social responsibility mentioned above already.8
Same concept – different labels? Consumer citizenship and political consumerism.
Much more holistic and closer to our understanding of consumer social responsibility or
consumer ethics are publications under the label of “consumer citizenship” or “political
consumerism”.
Sue McGregor develops her concept of consumer citizenship in a keynote speech
manuscript for a presentation at a conference in Norway during Spring 2002 with this title. She
departs basically from the following definition of Gabriel and Lang (1995): “(a citizen is) ‘a
responsible consumer, a socially-aware consumer, a consumer who thinks ahead and tempers his
or her desires by social awareness, a consumer whose actions must be morally defensible and
533557309 page 5
who must occasionally be prepared to sacrifice...’ People need to fight their feelings of
powerlessness and disconnectedness by developing their sense of community and their
confidence that they can make a difference in the world especially in their role as consumer...
People need to see themselves as consumer-citizens in a life long learning process, with "citizen"
meaning a responsible, socially aware consumer willing to make reasoned judgements and
sacrifices for the common good... If people were sensitized to see themselves as consumercitizens, a sense of morality, ethics and community could emerge again in the world. A
community is a group of people who acknowledge their interconnectedness, have a sense of their
common purpose, respect their differences, share responsibility for the actions of the group and
support each other's growth... What is needed instead is to reinvent citizenship ... and... (to)
reinvent consumers. Citizens and consumers tend to see themselves in narrow roles... The time is
right to merge the notions of consumer-citizenship leading to an opportunity to socialize people to
be responsible, socially aware consumers willing to make reasoned judgements and sacrifices for
the common good... (McGregor, 2002, pp. 5-7, in part referring to other sources which are
included here, too).9
When it comes to “political consumerism”, a recent Nordic conference report departs
from the following definition (Boström et al., 2005, p. 9, quoting Micheletti et al., 2003), as a
“consumer choice of producers and products with the goal of changing objectionable institutional
or market practices. It is based on attitudes and values regarding issues of justice, fairness, or
non-economic issues that concern personal and family well-being and ethical or political
assessment of favorable and unfavorable business and government practice. Regardless of
whether political consumers act individually or collectively, their market choices reflect an
understanding of material products as embedded in a complex social and normative context
which may be called the politics behind products...” According to the same authors, there is
disagreement among researchers in the field if political consumerism has a realistic potential of
changing practices, or rather not, perhaps even if political consumerism can be disputable since
any consumption increase is problematic as such (ibid., p. 9-10). Among the more than 30 authors
of 22 papers (and many useful references in the introductory chapter) in this report, mainly but
not only based on Scandinavian research, one can pick one as a sample, a follow-up publication
of a Danish PhD thesis (Sørensen, 2004). After distinguishing between discriminating and
patronizing certain products or producers (fravalg versus tilvalg, in Danish) the author holds that
community orientation and holism are the basic definition criteria of political consumption (rather
than narrow personal interest), where politicalness is a summary term for concern for the
environment, for animal welfare and/or Third world living conditions. Consistently with that,
political consumption can also serve as a common denominator of “green” and “ethical”
consumption (pp. 23, 25). Most interesting is the last section of the book, where Sørensen relates
to U. Beck’s world risk society theory and not least offers an inspiring final paragraph: “In this
533557309 page 6
unstable situation (of a world risk society, author’s add.) we might ... factually need political
consumers who think globally, as a counter power against a more and more global business
world... As long as there is a lack of a division of labor between a business sphere producing
wealth and a political sphere taking care of its side effects on a transnational level, there is a need
for alternative regulation strategies and actors. Maybe this could be political consumption and
political consumers, in spite of their shortcomings...” (p. 116).
All such views could and should then eventually be related to and incorporated in
a model of consumer activity in an ethical perspective.
A consumer decision and life-style perspective
Consumer Behavior textbooks and the Consumer Ethics literature seem to share an
interest in decision-making, or more generally in basic activities by which consumers
relate to and survive in markets as environments. Consumer researchers and ethicists
alike seem interested in how a freedom of choice is handled, by information handling and
concluding, identifying and choosing between alternatives, using more or less rational
criteria. 10 Such a common interest explains the popularity of more or less complex
decision-making-process models in the consumer behavior and the business ethics
literature.11 This represents also a good reason for conceptualizing consumer ethics
around an integrated decision making model. For such a project one could either depart
from an “ethics” model such as extending the above-mentioned Hunt-Vitell marketing
ethics model (1993) to consumer ethics, as suggested by Vitell (2003), 12 or from a
standard consumer behavior model and then extend it, e.g. by including a variable
“ethical awareness” or “ethical significance” somewhere in the chosen model. As we see
it, the primary challenge is to include varying “moral intensity” (Jones, 1991) in such
models without either overstating or understating its relative importance. For this reason
we would rather not re-use the Hunt-Vitell model, and draft instead another model as a
533557309 page 7
first step towards a future synthesis model which would transcend consumer behavior and
consumer ethics models (see Exhibit #1; originally inspired by the Ferrell et. al. 2002
model).
Individual factors (moral sensitivity
and moral maturity, individual
consumer role norms, resource and
model strength/weakness)
Adding up to and
building a consumer
life-style
.
Moral intensity of a
consumer task
- relative strength/
significance of a moral
connotation
- dishonesty and/or
responsibility issue
Evaluation process by moral and/or
consumer decision rules and intention
development
Contextual factors
(social situation and context, behavior
opportunity, social control)
Moral intensity of a
consumer behavior/
decision
- Honest vs. dishonest
- Moral vs. amoral vs.
immoral decision
Modification (structuration) of future
behavior contexts
Exhibit #1
A few brief comments on the most important elements of the model can be useful. The
golden rule of reading models applies here, too, starting with the dependent variable, i.e.
a decision and the immediate process preparing it. The most everyday example could be
considering a fair trade labeled coffee13 or bananas in a given choice situation. The more
deliberately one intends to use one purchase behavior as voting, the more reasoning and
reflection one would expect to find in the process before the decision to vote, e.g. for
533557309 page 8
good or against bad companies or countries (cf. e.g. Klein et al., 2002, Sen and
Bhattacharya, 2001). 14 Since the morality of consumer behavior is a variable rather than
a constant, a concept of ethical or moral intensity is primary in the model (cf. Jones,
1991, Ferrell et al., 2002, Crane and Matten, 2004). Moral intensity refers to how morally
“significant” or “serious” a given task, handling process and situation is. Both actors and
outsiders could define for example small amount insurance cheating as morally neutral or
buying factory hen eggs as morally bad (at least right after a TV program about it). Moral
intensity is co-determined by individual moral sensitivity and moral maturity (cf.
Brinkmann, 2004, table #2) and by social-situational contexts, e.g. being more morally
reflected when buying a gift then when buying less visible food for one’s own daily use.
Unlike the Ferrell model we suggest to repeat moral intensity also on the output side of
the model (and then link it to the input side by a feedback-loop). After all, it is interesting
if and how strongly the self-observation by the actors themselves as well as observation
and evaluation by spectators focus on the moral intensity of a decision (low or high, not
interesting or alarming, worse than or better “than average”). And then, every “good” and
“bad ethics” decision represents an example which can create and reinforce future moral
intensity. There is also an important narrower feedback from outcomes to a reproduction
(or structuration in the Giddens sense) of contexts, and not least an aspect of life-style
building by decision-styles and consistencies. The key element of the model is ethical
examination or evaluation and the development of a conclusion or decision. This box
includes all kinds of typical moral philosophical approaches, such as clear or implicit
deontologist, utilitarianist, perhaps virtue ethicist or discourse ethicist approaches. While
anticipation and evaluation of consumer behavior consequences only is implicitly
included in the model (under utilitarianist evaluation, in case), we have found good
533557309 page 9
typological illustrations of the decision rule and for the moral intention components (see
exhibits #2 and #3).
rule type
description
compensatory
weak ratings on one criterion can be
compensated by a strong rating on
another one – the alternative with
the best summarized ratings is
chosen
conjunctive
minimum acceptability must be
present for each relevant choice
criterion
minimum acceptability must be
present for each relevant choice
criterion and exceeded for at least
one among them
after ranking the criteria by
importance choose the best
alternative on the most important
criterion
determination of minimum cutoff
for each criterion and remove worse
alternatives
disjunctive
lexicographic
eliminative
relative importance of
morally right-wrong criteria
(if applied)
moral attractiveness (and
moral questionability) of an
alternative counts relatively,
i.e. can compensate weak
rankings, but can also be
compensated by competing
criteria
minimum moral acceptability
must be present and can't be
compromised
if minimum acceptability is
present for all other criteria
the degree of moral
acceptability decides
moral acceptability is ranked
as highly important and
dominates the choice
determination of minimum
moral acceptability and
remove unacceptable
alternatives
Exhibit #2 How “moral intensity” shows in purchase-decision rules
(source Brinkmann, 2004, p. 135)
Public
motives
Privatesocial motives
Privatecaring motives
Privatehedonism
motives
Engagement
roots
Political
participation
Generated by
social networks
Experience and
interaction
Feelings and
identity creation
Expression
Boycotts,
“buycotts”,
ethical investing
Influencability
media,
campaigns
Groupconformist
consumer
behavior
Social network,
roots, aspirations
Caring
consumer
behavior which
reduces worries
Concrete
experience and
worries
Alternative/
innovative
consumption,
excitement
Fashion, innovations, new
self-realization
and pleasure
Exhibit #3 A typology of primary ethical shopping motives
(source: Etisk forbrug..., 2003, p. 21; authors’ table construction and transl. from Danish).15
533557309 page 10
The question of a life-style component deserves another brief comment. A too
strong and limited focus on decisions, here and elsewhere, feels inconsistent with the
limited importance of single, isolated decisions, both for the single individual and for the
close and distant stakeholders affected, unless such decisions develop and turn into a
pattern or a routine. Especially under the aspect of routine development or reproduction
one should consider a focus on patterns of decisions in addition or even instead, on lifestyle. Life-style denotes how individuals (or households) typically decide, use their
freedom of choice, allocate their purchase power and time, within a range given by their
more material living conditions.16 As an illustration, we can refer to the Norwegian NGO
Fremtiden i våre hender (Future in our hands) which uses life-style as a key concept17
(in fact, it started with a publication of its founder, with the title Alternativ livsstil ). We’ll
return to this organization as a case illustration further below in this paper (for the
website see http://www.fivh.no/index.php?show=111&expand=111).
Empirical perspectives
Business and consumer ethics have a normative content, since their focus is on
constructive criticism and on moral arguments in favor of good and right behavior. The
more one is interested in any gaps between ideals and realities, between potentially good
intentions and practical barriers to good outcomes, the wiser it seems to describe and
understand different subgroups of consumers properly, empirically, before evaluating
them critically-morally. This is even more so, if one intends to influence consumers into a
“more ethical” direction. In other words, empirical knowledge about consumer behavior
and consumer persuasion in general and about acceptable arguments in particular is
crucial, at least in such latter contexts.
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With more space available, one could now take the next step and translate the model
presented in exhibit #1 into operationalizations and into an outline of desirable empirical
research, for example with a focus on mapping moral sensitivity, on information
processing in general and on use of decision rules in particular.18 For the time being, we
can at least offer references to a qualitative Nordic pilot study and to examples of nonacademic market and opinion research findings.
A few years ago the Nordic council conducted and reported minor qualitative studies in
Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark about potential ethical consumer engagement in
these countries.19 A lengthy quotation from the report summary in English fits really well for this
section of our paper under the given constraints, with theses as the following ones (shortened and
selected, our italics):

Ethical consumption has a tendency to become immeasurable, fatiguing and burdensome.
Many consumers simply find it difficult to involve themselves and maintain focus on the big
ethical scale of the global market. “The human dimension” (conditions for the people who
have produced the goods) has a tendency to be overshadowed by the numerous other ethical
problems of our time with which consumers are confronted. The ecology, animal welfare,
environmental problems, state of health and recycling seem to be more clear and relevant
spheres of effort for consumers.

The consumers express a longing for clear guidelines and labelling.20 But it is actually a
longing for an unattainable horizon, as it is supplemented by scepticism towards information
and labelling. Consumers are namely also concerned as to whether they can trust the
information and labelling they get.

Enjoyment is an important driving force behind involvement in ethical consumption. Even
though many people see a conflict between ethics and enjoyment, involvement in ethical
consumption is usually connected with the enjoyment of making a serious effort and feeling
like a good human being. Choices regarding ethical consumption are also connected with the
special privilege of having time and money enough to take pains, to choose one’s own
spheres of effort and to make a difference. This care is connected with a good feeling, and is
also a good subject in the consumers’ stories about themselves and their community.

Consumers in all five Northern countries express a big scepticism towards the market and its
undertakings... and consumers have a tendency to be sceptical about the fact that ethics is
connected with gain and strategic placing on the market. Multinational corporations are
especially classified as unethical...21
Now and then opinion and market research addresses ethical and/or political purchasing, too.
533557309 page 12

One of the questions addressed in a recent Norwegian survey was the relative importance of
different consumer-sub-roles, such as ability and willingness to rational self-interest
maximizing in markets, but also relating to the natural environment and acting politically as
part of one’s consumer role. As expected, majorities of respondents claim to be priceconscious (63%) and planning shoppers (54%), and perhaps as expected, still 41% claim to
be environmentally conscious consumers. In such a context, the numbers related to the topic
of this paper appear still relatively high: 35% “claim to be a person who boycotts certain
brands” and 27% agree more or less in a statement that they “refrain from purchasing certain
goods for political reasons.” Bivariate breakdowns show clearly higher frequencies for the
30-60 year old respondents (38/31%) and for respondents with lower or higher university
degrees (46/34%, see Brusdal et al., 2005, pp. 4-8).

When it comes to mapping knowledge of and opinions about fair trade labels one would
typically follow standard market research procedure, i.e. ask for knowledge of fair trade
labels using unaided and aided recall (4%, 18% of a 2002-Norwegian sample do recall the
Havelaar label), then perhaps asking for where one learned about the label (30% mention
point of purchase). In follow-up questions one would then typically probe for different
labeled products, then perhaps ask about purchase frequency of labeled products and places,
then ask respondents with purchase experience about their motives (45% mention “good
cause” while 37% answer “by accident”). Whether biased by the previous questions or not,
close to 50% assume it highly or quite likely that they will consider buying fair trade labeled
products in the future, with 22% not willing to pay more, while 59% claim to be willing to
pay more, 26% up to 10% and 15% up to 25% more (quoted from the 2002-Havelaar table
report; presentation slides from a 2004-repetition claim a slight increase in unaided label
recall, to 6%, and in purchase frequency ).
Consumer Behavior and Marketing, Consumer Ethics and Marketing Ethics
It is fruitful to emphasize a high degree of interdependence between consumer behavior
and (consumer) marketing, i.e. between acquisition and use of goods for need satisfaction
and inviting such need satisfaction and helping with it on behalf of someone who has
something to offer. We suggest that consumer ethics and marketing ethics are highly
interdependent, too. As an academic subject, consumer behavior is a social science-based
subspecialty under marketing, which tries to describe, understand and predict consumer
decision-making as a function of demographic, psychological and sociological variables
533557309 page 13
as “independent” variables, perhaps as interacting variables. Based on such knowledge
and understanding, marketing can then try to function as an “intervening variable”,
between such “independent” variables and “dependent” variables, such as decisionmaking processes and choices on different levels. Two kinds of intervening variables
seem most important and might even be sufficient in consumer behavior models:
situations (such as opportunity, availability, immediate context) and information. In this
paper it is more natural to focus on the latter, on consumer information processing, e.g.
related to if to shop, when to shop, where, how much, which brands, according to which
rules, with which post-purchase evaluations, etc., with more or less “help” from
marketing. The ethicalness and responsibility of consumers and their handling of
situations and information are not independent of marketing either, and marketing can be
used for selling “ ethical products”, e.g. by offering situations and information, hopefully
in a more or less ethically acceptable way.22 Following from all this one could reason that
good ends such as fair trade need first of all efficient marketing, with a best possible mix
of moral argumentation, theory-based marketing techniques, relevant, reliable data and
relevant models 23 - for consumer behavior as consumer information behavior. (And as an
extension of the thoughts above one might add: the more moral the marketing appeals,
the higher the need for moral integrity or at least moral credibility of such marketing.) In
a next step, such “useful” information and models could be grouped by products,
consumers and situations which they relate to, and persuasion work could focus
accordingly, simply using more or less traditional and sophisticated marketing, for a
presumably good purpose.
For combining the various threads developed on this paper we can now apply
such a view of consumer behavior and marketing to buying and marketing of fair trade
533557309 page 14
products and ideas. Before we go a bit more into detail with two cases we can briefly
address a few distinctions, for a more systematic understanding of fair trade.
1. Fair shopping should be seen as a special case of ethical shopping on the same level
and with similar, perhaps now and then competing legitimacy as other good purposes
(environmentalism, animal welfare, support of local employment,24 fairly well
expressed in the following quotation:
Every day we choose between different products. Our purchase decisions do not only affect
us ourselves. The way the products have been produced can make a big difference to other
people, to nature, the environment and to animals. Ethical purchase behaviour is about taking
responsibility for the influence which we control ourselves. On the following pages you find
suggestions from Norwegian organisations for how you as a consumer can show that you
care. Good luck! (Authors’ translation from Norwegian, Etisk forbruk,
http://www.etiskforbruk.no/)25
2. Fair trade websites can represent essentially idealistic initiatives (i.e. normally
organized more or less professionally for reaching essentially idealistic goals) and fair
trade business organizations focused on surviving on competitive commercial
markets (but normally with some idealism in their self-conception)26
3. The scope of fair trade initiatives can be rather narrow or rather broad. Examples of
narrow focus could be coffee, tea, banana or textile campaigns, perhaps even
concentrating on one limited place.27 The Norwegian Future in Our Hands initiative
could be an example of a broad initiative.
4. A final distinction related to the initiative element of fair trade initiatives, if initiatives
are essentially bottom-up citizen initiatives or rather top-down initiatives as an
extension of corporate citizenship, perhaps with NGO/corporation alliances or with
alliance building between idealistic NGO and more neutral industry or inter-corporate
organizations in-between.
533557309 page 15
Exhibit #4 repeats these last mentioned antinomies and other antinomies mentioned
earlier.
Consumer ethics
Marketing ethics
Shopping and shopping pattern/ life-style
ethicalness
Consumer Social Responsibility
Ethicalness of selling and marketing)
Consumer initiatives
Business and industry initiatives
Non-profit fair trade initiatives (idealism)
No-loss or for-profit marketing of fair
trade (realism, perhaps cynicism)
Narrow or one-product-type focus
Broad or life-style focus
Corporate Social Responsibility
Exhibit #4
Instead of a further elaboration of such distinctions or of conceptual questions related to
fair trade28 we’d rather proceed right away to a few examples of how specific fair trade
initiatives market themselves on their websites, in different Scandinavian and other
European countries and languages, as well as internationally.29 A quick internet search
without any completeness ambitions results in lots of hits, which can be sorted in
different ways, e.g. by language.30 For space reasons if must be sufficient to refer to a few
sites in the three biggest Nordic-language speaking countries, Sweden, Denmark and
Norway:
Sweden
Norway
 http://www.varldsbutikerna.org/
 http://www.svalorna.org/loppis.
htm
 http://www.rattvisemarkt.se/arti
cle.asp?Article_Id=869
 http://changemaker.no/article/arc
hive/253
 http://www.fairtrade.no/
 http://www.fairtrade.no/06.htm
 http://www.maxhavelaar.no/,
Denmark
 http://www.salam.dk/sw299.asp
 http://www.maxhavelaar.dk/,
Exhibit #5
As an extension of exhibits #4 and #5 above we can now take a quick but closer look at
two Norwegian fair trade initiatives as “case” examples.
533557309 page 16
Case-example 1: Fremtiden i våre hender (The future in our hands)
http://www.fivh.no/index.php?show=111&expand=111
(Published 25.02.2005)
The Future in our hands (FIOH) is Norway's largest movement for comprehensive social change.
The same inspiration that brought it to lifehas also produced FIOH groups in Sweden, Great
Britain, Sri Lanka and several other countries
“We are committed to the global environment and a globally fair distribution of wealth. We believe
the two are inseparably linked, in a way that requires us to work on both subjects in an integrated
way. The movement has 20.000 members in Norway, and currently focus it's work around three
pillars:
Consumption and
quality of life
Create support for the need for a
reduced consumption of resources
in Norway, to protect the
environment and the world's poor
Create a longing in the population
for a less commercialised society,
and a lifestyle with a reduced focus
on materialism
Fair distribution
Business ethics
Create support for global
redistribution, where the poor
improve their living conditions, and
the rich reduce their consumption of
resources
Norwegian business and
investments in poor countries shall
contribute to levelling global
inequalities, and improve
environmental conditions
Work to reverse the flow of capital,
which currently runs from the South
to the North
Environment and human rights shall
not be sacrificed for the sake of
business- and investment profit
Some of the following links lead to Norwegian pages. These are marked with an (N). We still
hope they will be useful in getting an impression of our work.
Methods of work

The NorWatch project: Monitoring ethical standards on Norwegian foreign investments and
Norwegian businesses' conduct in developing countries. It has a special focus on human
rights impacts end environmental standards. Articles and comments to Norwegian media.

Research reports (N): Environment and development issues together with recommended
solutions.

Folkevett magazine (N): 6 issues/year distributed to members and prescribers, with articles
on development issues, Norwegian business- and investment ethics abroad, environment,
peace, values, new activities for social change, etc.

Speeches for schools and other audiences.

Debate - in the media and at local meetings.

Wide range of activities at local FIOH chapters throughout the country.
The links in Norwegian are quite informative. If one wants to know more about the
initiative but does not read Norwegian lots of thoughts and formulations are rather similar
on the UK sister organization homepage, http://www.fiohnetwork.org/.
533557309 page 17
Case-example 2: Initiativ for Etisk Handel
(http://www.etiskhandel.no)
Vision:
Stimulate trade that secures development, human rights and environment
Business idea:
Enable members to meet challenges related to ethical trade
The Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI-N) is a multiparty initiative involving companies, employers’
organisations, trade unions and NGOs. We are based on the acknowledgement that companies
have a responsible towards human rights (including basic and internationally accepted labour
rights) in the supply chain. Provided that production of goods is not exploiting workers and/or
leads to an unsustainable environmental development, we strongly believe that trade leads to
social and economic development in low- and middle income countries. Thus it is important to
import more, not less from these countries. Ethical trading (also called socially responsible
sourcing) must therefore not result in reduced imports from low- and middle-income countries.
We have a continuous improvements approach. Termination of a supplier relationship should only
be used as an exception and only when other appropriate measures have been tried without
result.
ETI-N aims to improve working conditions by promoting and improving code implementation. We
do this in two main ways
I. The ETI-N secretariat, NGO, trade union and corporate members work together to
identify what constitutes “good practice” in code implementation, and then promote and
share this good practice.
We identify good practice through studies, research, reports, co-operation and sharing of
experience between the members. We share this information through publications, seminars and
conferences, presentations at 3rd party events, and on our website.
II. We encourage companies to adopt the ETI-N Ethical Standards and implement it in their
supply chains. We aim to influence corporate behaviour in this regard by
 Getting new companies to join ETI-N. To become a member, the company must commit to
adopt the ETI-N Ethical Standards and to implement it in their supply chain.
 Providing capacity building within the companies. We provide training specifically aimed
at purchasers, as we believe this is the most essential target group within the member
company. We also act as an advisory body to members on specific issues. This ranges from
how to develop a company Code of Conduct, what to include in Action Plans and Strategies,
how to raise the issue of ethical trading in negotiation with suppliers, identificaton of local
partners (NGOs and unions) with whom the company could co-operate, analysing current
conditions in supply chain, suggest how to make corrective actions (improvements), advice
on what to include in a social report etc.
 Encouraging improvements and cooperation with suppliers. Bearing in mind our
fundamental approaches; “trade is development” and “continuous improvements” (also called
corrective actions), termination of a supplier relationship should only be used as an exception
and only when other appropriate measures have been tried without result. Member
companies commit themselves, on the basis of knowledge gained from monitoring to;
o Negotiate and implement agreed schedules for corrective actions with suppliers
failing to observe the terms of the code
o Require the immediate cessation of serious breaches of the code,
o Only where serious breaches of the code persist, to terminate any business
relationship with the supplier concerned.
 Initiating projects. In 2004-2005, we plan to initiate practical projects on how to improve
labour conditions, involving both ETI-N Companies, their suppliers (including workers!) and
local resource grooups (Unions and NGOs). Such projects can include one or more elements
of the Ethical Standards, e.g. how to combat extensive overtime, HIV/Aids issues, gender
discrimination etc. Experience from similar projects show that starting working with one
clause often leads to increased awareness towards another clasue.
533557309 page 18




Requiring all corporate members to submit annual progress reports on their code
implementation activities. These reports show that significant code implementation activity
has taken place, and that members’ suppliers are making concrete improvements to labour
practices.
National and global network. One of the strengts of being a multiparty body like ETI-N is
our extensive network. We aim to be both collaborative and solution oriented and thus we
work with a number of different bodies, both nationally and internationally.
In NORAD (Norwegian Agency for Development eration) is our main cooperative
partner. ETI-N is partly funded by NORAD (approx 40%) and membership fees (60%)
Other collaborative partners are; the Norwegian Minstry of Foreign Affairs, The Norwegian
Labour Inspection Authority, The Consumer Ombudsman, several research institutes and
socially responsible investors. It is worth mentioning that the latter is increasing in scope, &
size both in and internationally. Evidence show that investment return rate is very close
between ethical funds and “normal” funds.
With these cases (which could be developed a few steps further) one could start both a
discussion and perhaps a next paper, related to questions such as

How could marketing further consumer ethics in general and fair trade in particular?

What specific empirical knowledge about and cultural understanding of target groups
is required? Or perhaps, simply:

What would the respective organizations ask for and accept as help, morally and
politically?

Are there any ethical challenges related to non-profit marketing and cause-related
marketing of fair trade in general or related to the specific organization in particular?
In other words, if one is afraid of leaving the last word to the marketers one could instead
focus on non-profit marketing ethics for critical self-examination. After all, as mentioned
before, marketing with ethics as a primary argument risks always critical questions of
how the good cause is marketed.
533557309 page 19
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533557309 page 20
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533557309 page 21
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Netherlands)
533557309 page 22
Endnotes
1
This paper is an extension of a presentation with Kristi Yuthas on behalf of the International Peace
Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) with the title “Shopping for a Better World: Yes, but how?“, EU Applied
Global Justice network meeting, Tilburg, 24-27 Feb 2005, a heading which has been used before, e.g. by
Smith, 2001 (as a section headline) or by D. Overath, the head of German “Transfair”, in Forum
Wirtschaftsethik 12#1, Feb. 2004, pp. 12-13, or as title of a US-based shopping guide, CEP, 2001
2
In this paper, the reviewed literature is sorted into (mainly) two approaches, focusing on consumer
unethicalness and consumer ethicalness respectively, i.e. various kinds of consumer dishonesty and
consumer responsibility or idealism. Two other papers (written the same year) outline a further elaboration
of the dishonesty perspective (using insurance customer cheating as an example, see Brinkmann, 2005,
Brinkmann and Lentz, 2004). The present paper looks at the second perspective, consumer ethicalness or
consumer responsibility. In the end, all these papers are hopefully not only overlapping, but also
complementary parts of one research field - consumer ethics.
3
Perhaps academics could and should also help with clarifying terms, such as of the claimed “fairness” of
fair trade Such a presentation could be something like the following: Fairness (as justice) cuts across moral
philosophical schools, too. In the Aristotelian tradition, justice is more or less synonymous with virtue in a
most general sense, in deontology justice is a principle (of balancing and/or of equality, retributive vs.
distributive justice), while consequentialism would tend to evaluate justice as an outcome of actions or
arrangements, e.g. for systems or relationships. In everyday conversations, fairness and justice are perhaps
even more likely to turn up as an argument than both ethics and responsibility. In particular in exchange
relationships, immediate or mediated, justice or fairness simply fit better, at least intuitively, than
references to ethics, morality or responsibility. A short reference to J. Rawls’ Theory of Justice as fairness
(1971, 2001) seems tempting and/or almost mandatory, with essentially two central (“maximin”) principles
which a just society would strive to satisfy (as well as rational individuals behind a “veil of ignorance”): (1)
Each person has the same indefeasible claim to a fully adequate scheme of basic civil liberties, which
scheme is compatible with the same scheme of liberties for all; and (2) Social and economic inequalities are
to satisfy two conditions: first, they are to be attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions
of fair equality of opportunity; and second, they are to be to the greatest benefit of the least- advantaged
members of society...(2001, p. 42-43). The next question is then how far one can (and should) generalize
these principles to more indirect and global relationships, e.g. when looking at the co-responsibility of
consumers for global trade fairness. Rawls himself would consider the first principle as universal, but not
the second one, at least not necessarily, due to political-cultural differences across countries (see for a
further elaboration this question Collste, 2004; Goodin, 2003; Boatright 2003, 71-97). We would here tend
to follow Collste’s defence of Rawls against himself (2004, p. 183, cf. 2005, p. 16): “Global justice
demands not only a principle of respect for human rights and principle of non-intervention, but also a
principle of democratic influence and a global application of the difference principle. I have refuted some
objections to the principles of global justice but one question remains. Is it really possible to realise global
justice? Is it not just a utopian dream?” Collste answers the question by quoting “Rawls’ own comment on
the idea of the possibility of, what he calls, a realistic utopia”: “While realization is, of course, not
533557309 page 23
unimportant, I believe that the very possibility of such a social order can itself reconcile us to the social
world. The possibility is not a mere logical possibility, but one that connects with the deep tendencies and
inclinations of the social world. For as long as we believe for good reasons that a self-sustaining and
reasonable just political and social order both at home and abroad is possible, we can reasonably hope that
we or others will someday, somewhere, achieve it; and we can then do something towards this
achievement. This alone, quite apart from our success or failure, suffices to banish the dangers of
resignation and cynicism...” In practice, Collste’s suggestion is to identify justice with increasing virtuous
and hampering vicious development cycles, i.e. improving the general living conditions of the worst-off
(Collste follows here more or less the reasoning of A. Sen, M. Nussbaum and Th. Pogge in their respective
works). In the end, there are (simply) obligations stretching from do-no-harm to do-good.
4
A note for readers who feel less familiar with Business Ethics as a field: After some twenty to thirty years
of institutionalization, business ethics has all the status symbols in place such as journals, professional
organizations, annual conferences, PhD workshops, and increasingly similar course design and introductory
textbooks. Mainstream business ethics courses and textbooks contain increasingly predictable subtopics,
such as a presentation of moral philosophical “schools” – e.g. deontology, consequentialism, virtue ethics,
discourse ethics and others. With some simplification, one could say that the ones mentioned focus on
basic, universal rights and obligations, or on relatively best mixes of consequences for affected parties, or
on what a good person typically would do for living a good life, or on a open and fair dialogue among the
parties.
5
Mainstream business ethics courses and textbooks contain normally a lecture and a chapter about CSR as
topic, while mainstream courses and textbooks deal with Business and Society or Corporate Social
Responsibility (CSR) do it the other way around and tend to offer business ethics as a subtopic, see e.g.
McAlister et. al., 2003. Cf. also on a Journal article level of ambition, Matten and Moon, 2004
6
A more appropriate name for this “CES”-scale would be consumer dishonesty scale, cf. below.
7
See still another paper of Vitell, 2001, with some bridge-building between such theoretical and empirical
research. For a discussion of the possible narrowness of the Consumer ethics scale (CES) research tradition
see Brinkmann and Lentz, 2004.
8
E.g. as “... a consumer’s obligation to maximize his/her positive impact on stakeholders ... and to
minimize his/her negative impact. There are four kinds of ... responsibility: legal, economic, ethical and
philanthropic...” (cf. Brinkmann and Yuthas 2005, also with a synopsis table of both responsibility types.
9
Later in the same paper the author develops “participatory consumerism” more or less as the practice of
such citizenship.
10
Cf. once more Brinkmann, 2004, 135-136, suggesting a combination of the Ferrell et. al. "synthesis
model" (1989) with consumer behavior decision rule theory (cf. e.g. Bettman, 1979) Table #1 in
Brinkmann, 2004 offers a presentation of the different rule types indicating the relative potential influence
of moral criteria when evaluating and choosing alternatives.), as well as an application of Kohlberg’s and
Rest’s moral maturity theory, see Brinkmann 2004, table #2).
11
Cf. models in various versions, e.g. Ferrell et al., 1989, and Ferrell et al., 2002, pp. 104-116. Cf. also
decision-making chapter 4 in Crane and Matten, 2004. For a typical consumer behavior textbook chapter,
533557309 page 24
see Chisnall, 1995, commenting several flowcharts, not least the most widely quoted one of Engel, Kollat
and Blackwell, 1982.
12
The Hunt-Vitell model fits perhaps even better for morally responsible than for dishonest consumer
behavior.
13
Cf. as a really well-elaborated marketing ethics case Anne Kozak et al., ‘Starbucks coffee company: A
fair trade’, in Murphy and Laczniak, 2006, 118-142
14
For a first and preliminary draft of “consumer behavior as voting behavior” see once more Brinkmann,
2004, p. 133-134, i.e. situations where consumers use their "purchase votes" in the marketplace to "elect"
the sort of society they wish to be part of (Dickinson and Hollander, 1991), with boycotts as most explicit
case, i.e. "attempts by one or more parties to achieve certain objectives by urging consumers to refrain from
making selected purchases in the marketplace" (Friedman, 1985, p. 97), "organized exercising of consumer
sovereignty by abstaining from purchase … in order to exert influence" (quoted from one of the standard
texts, Smith, 1990, p. 140, cf. also ibid., pp. 298 ff.; or as other standard texts Friedman 1985, 1991, with
an interesting 1996-extension, “buycott” behavior, i.e. voting “for” instead of against). Other useful
references are Klein et al. (2002) who develop a model for explaining variation in boycott participation by
four groups of moderator variables, and the flowchart in Sen et al., 2001, p. 401. Cf also a recent book in
Danish (Sørensen, 2004), based on the author’s 2002-PhD thesis.
15
Another distinction which one could consider here is quite well-known as the one between Kantianist
(focusing on good will or intent) and utilitarianist ethics (focusing on relatively best mixes of
consequences), or the similar Max Weber distinction between Gesinnungsethik and Verantwortungsethik
(intentional and responsibility ethics), in a speech about politics as profession , see Weber, 1968, and
Brinkmann and Yuthas 2005 as an application).
16
Such a concept of life-style suggests also references to interesting theoretical traditions in classical and
more recent social science, e.g. of self-reproducing practices (cf. the Giddens concept of structuration) or
taste (as the main criterion of Bourdieu’s distinction). Cf. perhaps the material spending and resulting
welfare typology of Grønmo and Lavik, 1980, p. 23, as an example Cf. also J. Brinkmann, Om teori og
metode, Oslo 1993, p. 96-97 and the more abstract Norsk monitor typology of modern vs. traditional,
materialist vs. idealist consumers.
17

Cf. What pops up if you click on the Norwegian hompepage link regarding quality of life:
Vi som bor i den rikeste femtedelen av verden står for 80 prosent av forbruket! Likevel skal vi få mer:
I Norge er forbruket økt med 40 prosent på ti år og prognoser viser at vi skal doble dagens forbruk
innen 2030. Jakten på materielle verdier skader naturen – og kanskje også vår egen livskvalitet.

Klimaødeleggelsen og utryddelsen av dyre- og plantearter viser at dagens forbruk er altfor høyt. ”Mer
vekst i de rike landene er en forferdelig tanke. Det går ikke i hop med miljøet”, sa Norges forrige
Nobelprisvinner i økonomi. Vi må redusere forbruket vårt om fattige mennesker skal gis mulighet til
øke sitt.

Politikerne kan begrense miljøskadelig forbruk ved hjelp av skatter og avgifter. Det er særlig på fem
områder forbruket vårt belaster miljøet: Bil, bolig, biff, bomull og Braathens (flyreiser). Jordkloden
kollapser hvis alle mennesker i verden skal opp på norsk nivå på disse områdene.
533557309 page 25

Framtiden i våre hender arbeider for at kløften mellom de rikeste og fattigste i verden må gjøres
mindre – og at våre etterkommere arver en natur med et rikt dyre- og planteliv.
18
We have at this stage not yet conducted any more systematic search for empirical research related to
consumer responsibility beyond the few references mentioned above but would welcome any references,
published or not.
19
The report is published in Danish and can be downloaded free of charge from a website:
http://www.norden.org/pub/velfaerd/konsument/sk/TN2003557.asp
20
Perhaps this is a routine response. If one really looks for guides, they are just a click away on the internet,
with online shopping guides such as http://www.gooshing.co.uk or http://www.foescotland.org.uk/miniGSG/ (which is a short version of a book, see www.thegoodshoppingguide.co.uk/). In
addition, there are sites with a narrower focus, too, e.g. on clothing and sweatshops (http://sweatshop.clcctc.ca/en/ethical.html).
21
When it comes to the marketing communication question one can for the time being refer to the in The
same Nordic report formulates also a number of recommendations, more or less based on this qualitative
pilot research; shortened and slightly adjusted, our italics):

Provide trustworthy guides for interested, but often powerless and irresolute consumers, (who are)
morally and ethically involved, but ... find it difficult to orient themselves and know the difference
between right and wrong on the big, ethical scale, including the global market.

A consumer political focus on the “human dimension” of ethics – the conditions for the people who
produce the products – is important... The possibility of gathering the various descriptions of the
human material – such as ethics, fair trade, “rätvis... handel” (fair trade), Max Havelaar, companies'
social responsibility – into one overall description should be considered, focusing on the fact that the
consumers’ choice has consequences for the producers of the products.21

Give the consumers concrete examples of ethical consumption choices having made a difference for
the people who produce the products.... Examples will be able to counteract the tendency to resignation
that is seen in many consumers...

Support the consumers’ enjoyment by making an effort and doing something special. To consume
ethically is a sort of care that may be burdensome, but at the same time it is worthwhile in the form of
good conscience and the pleasure of having done something special. The consumers’ enjoyment of
being and doing something special is an important driving force behind their involvement in ethical
consumption..., (of) their choice of goods being important for the unknown and often very far away
people who have produced the goods...

The consumer organisations have an important task as an intermediary between (companies) and the
consumers. The consumers have a tendency to draw up a contrast between ethics and gain, and
therefore they meet the (companies’) own ethical initiatives with a big scepticism. It is important for
the consumers’ to trust in initiatives like e.g. the Danish ethical base, that a consumer political
authority will be responsible for establishing the criteria and checking the information.

The work with an ethical (label) should build upon a clarification of the fact if it is a matter of broad
ethics – environment, people and animals – or if it is a matter of focusing on the “human material” ...
533557309 page 26
directly. If “the human material” is brought into focus, another name than the much too broad and
diffuse word ethics ought to be found.
22
One would assume and expect that claimed ethicalness of products and producers easily (almost
automatically) create expectations of marketing ethicalness, or at least negatively, that marketing ethical
products and companies makes them more vulnerable to moral evaluation and criticism.
23
For a better understanding and conceptualization of information handling in a context like here, a social
science concept of models as simplifications of more or less complex information could be useful, as a
useful tool somewhere between concepts and theory (cf. Brinkmann, 1993, pp. 12f., 70, largely inspired by
S. Bråtens ‘model power’ theory, departing from an assertion that models are indispensable in most
information handling and communication contexts, as simplifications of complexity. If an actor has not
his/her own models developed on his/her own premises one needs to adopt models developed by others,
expressing their premises and interests, and risks involuntarily to further other actors’ model power. Modelrich actors can filter, select, concentrate relevant information, in particular whenever new information is
coming in.
24
Cf. once more http://www.norden.org/pub/velfaerd/konsument/sk/TN2003557.asp.
25
One wonders if the following British site has served as a model: “Ethical purchasing put simply is buying
things that are made ethically by companies that act ethically. Ethical can be a subjective term both for
companies and consumers, but in its truest sense means without harm to or exploitation of humans, animals
or the environment… The ways in which you can act as an 'ethical consumer' can take on a number of often
subtle forms.

Positive buying is favouring ethical products, be they fair trade, organic or cruelty free. This option is
arguably the most important since it directly supports progressive companies.

Negative purchasing means avoiding products you disapprove of such as battery eggs or polluting cars.

Company-based purchasing involves targeting a business as a whole. For example, the Nestlé boycott
targets all its brands and subsidiaries in a bid to force the company to change its marketing of baby
milk formula in the Third World.

The fully screened approach is a combination of all three and means looking at all the companies and
products together and evaluating which brand is the most ethical...(http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/)
26
One could think of a continuum here reaching from idealism to realism to cynicism, where companies or
organizations would instrumentalize fair trade claims and rhetoric for profit or other self-interest. Most fair
trade initiatives seems to use non-profit or .org-sites, but there are .com-sites, too, e.g. shops marketing
themselves, such as http://www.maketradefair.com/en/index.htm, http://www.fairtradefederation.com/, or
http://www.oeko-fair.de/oekofair.php/cat/3, http://www.fair-feels-good.de/.
27
Labelling and branding lies in-between, labeling one product at a time, but communicating fair trade as a
common denominator across products, cf. Max Havelaar-branding (see e.g. in Scandinavia the two
maxhavelaar-sites in the table below, and perhaps http://www.maxhavelaar.nl/ or
http://www.maxhavelaarfrance.org/ in addition).
533557309 page 27
28
See as an example of how one could introduce the topic a bit systematically:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_trade or as an example of conferences dealing with the topic:
http://www.fairtradeexpo.org/. Other references with a consumer politics focus are the Scandinavian
reports Etisk forbrug, 2003 and Forbrugernes..., 2001
29
Cf. also two non-profit organizations look primarily for company and individual members:
http://www.ifat.org/, http://www.globalexchange.org/. Another point of departure could be labeling, see
e.g. http://www.fairtrade.net/.
30
See also in other European languages e.g. http://www.transfair.org/ or http://www.fairtrade.at/ (in
German; cf. also http://www.fairtrade.de/ is a website of an initiative which had to give up),
http://www.fairtrade.nl/ (in Dutch), http://www.tudatosvasarlo.hu/ (in Hungarian), http://www.transfair.ca/
(in English and French), or more somewhat less country-focused, at least because of the more common
language http://www.eftafairtrade.org/map.asp, http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/,
http://www.fairtraderesource.org/, http://www.peopleforfairtrade.org/ or http://www.transfairusa.org/.
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