On The Nature of Sustainable Product Choices: A Qualitative Study Examining College Students' Attitudes Toward Sustainable Brands

On the nature of sustainable product choices 1
Running Head: SUSTAINABILITY, COLLEGE STUDENTS, CONSUMPTION BEHAVIOR,

BRANDS, ATTITUDES
On the nature of sustainable product choices:

A qualitative study examining college students’ attitudes toward sustainable brands
Ashley D. Heyer
School of Education and Social Policy
Northwestern University
James Rosenbaum, PhD

Principle Investigator
School of Education and Social Policy
John Laing, PhD

Reader
Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Philosophy
Bruce G. Carruthers
Reader
Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Sociology
Acknowledgements
As I bring this project to fruition, it’s important to notice two things (1) this is the longest thing I
have ever written and (2) I did not write it alone -- I am deeply indebted to those around me for
their support, understanding, and expertise.
A special thanks to:
John Laing, PhD. for being my most trusted advisor.
Danny Cohen for helping me develop the sorting exercises in the semi-structured interview
protocol. Realizing that I could generate rich data by asking my participants to sort those cards
into piles was one of the best things that happened to this project.
Penelope Peterson, PhD for helping me to realize that this project was meant to be qualitative.
Donna Kwiatkowski for helping me sort out the paperwork to get access to the grant money I
was awarded by the Initiative for Sustainability and Energy at Northwestern University (ISEN)
to fund this project
My housemates, Mike Goldstein, Paul Gafni, and David Linder, for their love and words of
encouragement
And let’s not forget that little thing, inspiration.

Naomi Klein, Barbara Einrich, John Rawls, Immanuel Kant, Rene Magritte, Radiohead,
Sweatshop Union, Modest Mouse, The Roots, Clipse, Jay Z, and the Notorious B.I.G. provided
many of the ideas, artistic and ideological, that inspired this project and kept me motivated to
complete it.
Table of Contents
Abstract .................................................................................................................5
Research Objectives & Review of Literature..........................................................6
Definition of Sustainability.........................................................................6
Finality of Social Sustainability..................................................................6
American Over Consumption .....................................................................7
Positive Attitudes Toward Sustainable Goods.............................................7
Ethical Consumerism..................................................................................8
The Attitude-Behavior Gap ........................................................................9
Increased Marketing of Sustainable Products .............................................9
Greenwash .................................................................................................10
The Research Question ...............................................................................10
Research Methods..................................................................................................11
Study Participants: The Early Adopters ......................................................11
Online Survey ............................................................................................12
Scoring the Online Survey..........................................................................13
Semi-Structured Interviews ........................................................................13
Exercise 1 Instructions....................................................................14
About the Brands ............................................................................14
About the Behaviors .......................................................................16
Data Logistics & Participant Compensation ...........................................................17
Data Analysis.........................................................................................................18
Grounded Theory .......................................................................................18
Concept Map ..............................................................................................20
Results & Discussion .............................................................................................21
The Early Adopters ....................................................................................21
Results and Discussion of Exercise 1..........................................................21
Structure of Sustainable Brands ......................................................21
Structure of Unsustainable Brands ..................................................23
Affective Qualities of Sustainable and Unsustainable Brands..........25
Results and Discussion of Exercise.............................................................27
Behaviors at the Top of the Hierarchy.............................................27
Behaviors at the Bottom of the Hierarchy........................................28
Concern for Capital.........................................................................29
Historical Roots of Concern for Capital ..........................................30
Stability = Unsustainability.............................................................31
Moving from
Stability = Unsustainability to Stability = Sustainability..................32
Policy Recommendations.......................................................................................33
Price...........................................................................................................34
Pigouvian Taxes .............................................................................35
The California Effect ......................................................................36
Information ................................................................................................38
Educate the Consumer ....................................................................38
The Difficult Diaper Decision .........................................................38

Energy Star .....................................................................................40
GoodGuide and other Decision Helping Tools ................................41
Availability ................................................................................................42
Sustainable Product Placement........................................................42
Leveraging Sustainable Products.....................................................42
NBC’s Behavior Placement.............................................................43
Benefits to Sustainable Companies .............................................................45
Conclusions ...........................................................................................................45
Future Directions for Research...............................................................................47
Beyond the Early Adopters.........................................................................47
Small Companies & Sustainable Business ..................................................47
Situational Primers & Sustainable Consumption.........................................48
Limitations.............................................................................................................48
Works Cited...........................................................................................................50
Appendices ............................................................................................................53
(A) Shell Advertisement .............................................................................54
(B) Online Survey Protocol ........................................................................55
(C) Semi-Structured Interview Protocol......................................................60
(D) Bibliography Regarding Brand Pairs ....................................................62
Abstract
Americans, the world’s most voracious consumers, claim to have positive attitudes
toward both environmentally and socially sustainable products, and many claim that they would
purchase these products even if they were more expensive than unsustainable products. The
purchasing behavior of these consumers, however, is not necessarily consistent with their
positive attitudes. To more fully understand that behavior gap, this qualitative study explores
consumer attitudes toward sustainable goods as well as sustainable business practices in order to
generate a more nuanced understanding of consumer attitudes toward sustainable products. This
consists of identifying how “sustainable brands” and “unsustainable brands” are perceived
relative to one another, why consumers would be likely to prefer sustainable brands over
unsustainable brands, and what barriers exist to purchasing or preferring sustainable products. I
outline the basic structural and affective qualities participants attribute to sustainable and
unsustainable brands, and illuminate 4 barriers to purchasing sustainable products: (1) high price,
(2) lack of information, and (3) lack of availability, and (4) concern for capital. To have a
concern for capital1 is to say that while someone may feel positively about purchasing
sustainable products and enjoy the concept of sustainable business, they are also worried that
operating a sustainable business is antithetical to accumulating capital. I offer policy
recommendations designed to diminish the first three barriers to purchasing sustainable products,
which may serve to temper the attitudes of consumers toward these products and diminish the
persistence of the fourth barrier. These recommendations are designed to encourage growth in
the market for sustainable products through consumer demand.
1
In neoclassical economics, capital is one of the factors of production (land, labor, organization,
entrepreneurship, and management may be considered others), which are the resources employed
to produce goods and services, but are not, themselves, consumed.
Research Objectives & Review of Literature
Definition of Sustainability
One of the most influential definitions of sustainability comes from the World
Commission on Environment and Development developed by the United Nations. It defines
sustainability as “a process of change in which the exploitation of resources, the direction of
investments, the orientation of technological development; and institutional change are all in
harmony and enhance both current and future potential to meet human needs and aspirations”
(United Nations, 1987). The definition of sustainability I will use throughout this project is “the
potential for long-term maintenance of Earth’s ecosystem, which depends on making trade offs
between the economic, social, and environmental spheres to meet the needs of the present
without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” I have chosen
this slightly altered definition to more clearly delineate the need for tradeoffs when it comes to
operating in a sustainable manner.
Finality of Social Sustainability
By alluding to the future of society, this definition contends that social sustainability is
finality of development, while economic and environmental sustainability are both goals of
sustainable development as well as instruments to achieve it. In other words, when we apply
sustainability as a concept, we should understand our ultimate concern to be the future existence
and stability of society. While sustainability certainly requires a clean environment and a
workable economic system, neither of these are sustainability’s ultimate end. After all, what
good would a clean environment and workable economics do without a society to enjoy them?
To satisfy this definition a sustainable company should be understood as a company that makes
tradeoffs between economic, social, and environmental concerns to the end of social
sustainability.
American Over Consumption
Americans constitute less than 5% of the world’s population, consume 21% of the
world’s energy, and account for 21% of the world GDP. To compare, Europe has 7.2% of the
world’s population, uses 18% of the world’s energy, and accounts for 21% of world GDP; China
has 20% of the world's population, consumes 16% of the world’s energy, and accounts for 11%
of its GDP. In 2000 the per capita consumption of all materials in the United States was 23.7
metric tons, 52% more than the European average. In 2007, the average American generated 4.6
lbs of municipal solid waste each day. For comparison, municipal solid waste generation rates
(in lbs/person/day) are 3.0 in Sweden, 3.4 in Germany, and 3.5 in the UK (University of
Michigan Center for Sustainable Systems, 2009)
These numbers suggest that Americans have a much greater (negative) impact on the
natural environment than any other population, and the country is continuing to grow. In 2009
the population of the United States was 306 million and it is estimated to increase to 370 million
by 2030 (US Census Bureau, 2009). Unless the consumption patterns of Americans are
significantly adjusted to account for the limited nature of natural resources, pressure on the
environment as well as social systems will increase in an effort to produce more goods.
Positive Attitudes Toward Sustainable Goods
Despite U.S. citizens’ high levels of consumption, polls consistently show that a majority
of U. S. citizens consider themselves to be "environmentalists.” According to the Green Gauge
Report, a nationwide long-term syndicated study of consumer attitudes and behaviors towards
the environment, eighty-seven percent of US consumers are “seriously” concerned about the
environment (Roper Organization, 2007). Consumers would even consider paying more for
environmentally friendly products. In a 1990 poll by the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency,
for example, 82% of the respondents said they would pay at least 5% more for a product that was
environmentally friendly, up from 49% the previous year (Levin, 1990). A more recent
Advertising Age poll showed that for 70% of the respondents purchase decisions were at least
"sometimes" influenced by environmental messages in advertising and on product labels (Chase
and Smith, 1992).
Ethical Consumerism
The rise of green consumerism lead to a broadened concept of consumption referred to as
ethical consumerism2 (Uusitalo & Oksanen, 2004). Ethical consumerism refers to buyer
behavior that reflects a concern for problems that arise from unethical and unjust global trade
like child labor, low wages, human rights infringements, labor union suppression, and
environmental pollution (Strong, 1996). Both green consumerism and its subsequent ethical
consumerism are forms of symbolic consumption because consumers consider not only
individual but social values, ideas and ideologies when choosing products (Usuitalo & Oksanen,
2004).
In the U.S. consumers also seem to feel positively about ethical corporate behavior, and
they believe they would take actions to promote it through a willingness to pay higher prices for
products (Creyer & Ross, 1997; Simon, 1995). Vershoor (1997) reported that 75% of consumers
in one study claim that they would switch brands and retailers to support worthy causes like
2
There are also types of ethical consumerism that center around religious ideology like
purchasing kosher meat, or halaal. In 2006 Christians in America boycotted Ecke Ranch, the
largest producer of poinsettias, because of the ranch’s financial contributions to Planned
Parenthood, which provides abortions. For this project I focus on applied ethics, which is a
philosophical examination from a moral standpoint of particular issues in private and public life.
I do not consider ethical standards derived from purported supernatural revelation.
social justice or environmental sustainability. Over three quarters of consumers polled in the U.S.
assert that they would avoid purchasing products if they knew they were made under poor
working conditions. A comparable number claimed that they would be willing to pay more for
garments made without sweatshop labor (O’Rourke, 2005).
The Attitude-Behavior Gap
Although Americans may consider themselves environmentalists Hal Rothman (1998),
author of The Greening of a Nation?, argues that they are probably “half-hearted” ones, “and are
unwilling to face difficult choices and altered lifestyles.” Indeed, 83 percent of those polled in
an April 2000 Gallup poll readily agreed with the broadest goals of the environmental
movement, but when asked to rate their own commitment to the cause, just 16 percent said they
were “active participants,” while over half admitted that they were sympathetic but uninvolved.
Furthermore, when these respondents were asked to rate the seriousness of various problems on
the U.S. agenda comparatively, they tended to rank the environment well behind other issues like
drug use, violence, health care, and homelessness (Guber, 2003). If this is the case with
environmental concerns, it is likely to be the case for social sustainability as well. There are
probably very few American consumers who make an effort purchase goods that are produced by
laborers who have been fairly paid and are working in safe and healthy working conditions.
Increased Marketing of Sustainable Products
Although the majority of consumers may not be willing to purchase sustainable products
right now, companies have certainly gotten the message to begin marketing sustainable products.
The Marketing Intelligence Service estimates that manufacturers identified approximately 10%
of all new products introduced in 1990 as “green” or otherwise “environmentally friendly.” This
is more than double the number of “green” products just one year earlier and an incredible
2000% increase over the number of “green” products introduced in 1985 (Drumwright, 1994;
Davis, 1992). Mayer, Gray-Lee, Scammon, and Cude's (1996) audit of grocery store products
across the United States uncovered environmental product or package claims, either explicit or
implied, for 66 percent of the 397 brands they audited.
Given the sheer number of claims made, we can assume that a good number are relatively
trivial, confusing, misleading, or downright illegal. This is “greenwashing,” a process whereby a
company attempts to preserve or expand its market share by presenting its products in an
unjustifiably positive light. Although the term greenwashing implies a singular concern for the
environment, I contend that a product should be considered greenwashed when it unjustly
promotes a company’s social impacts as well.
Greenwash
Many corporations have attempted to market sustainable products by misrepresenting or
omitting facts about the social and environmental impacts of their products. For instance, you
may have seen some of Royal Dutch Shell's advertising, where the company boasts of its
commitment to sustainability and investments in alternative energy (Appendix A). The
company, however, does not seem to be dedicated to these concepts and has sold off most of its
solar and wind energy investments. Shell CEO Jeroen van der Veer recently stated that his
“company will continue to be primarily an oil and gas company” (Gronewald, 2009). When
companies spend money to propagate faulty information about their sustainability efforts, they
mislead and confuse consumers, which causes cynicism about all corporate sustainability claims
regardless of their truth.
The Research Question

In light of the complex nature of sustainable product decisions, we need research that
explores consumer attitudes in a more rich way than simply identifying the size of the market for
sustainable goods, which has been a popular avenue research about sustainable products. I have
chosen to conduct a qualitative study to explore consumers’ attitudes toward sustainable
products. To this end I will identify what kind of information consumers (specifically
Northwestern undergraduates) use when asked to differentiate between sustainable and
unsustainable goods as well as explore their attitudes toward sustainable goods and sustainable
business practices, while paying special attention to whether sustainable goods are preferred to
unsustainable goods and why. This research will lead to a more nuanced view on how
consumers perceive sustainable brands and a further understanding of the attitude-behavior gap,
which may in turn help those who have a vested interest in encouraging (or discouraging) the
purchase of sustainable products get their message out more successfully.
Research Methods
Study Participants: The Early Adopters
I have opted to focus on Northwestern undergraduate students (ages 18-22) as the subject
of this research because they are akin to type of person who is likely to care about sustainability
today. Indeed, compared to the average citizen of the United States, Northwestern undergraduate
students are wealthier, more educated, and younger.
Sustainable products are often more expensive than their unsustainable equivalents. For
instance, Organic food products typically cost 10 to 40% more than similar conventionally
produced products (Winter & Davis, 2006). On a similar note, Fair Trade products are
oftentimes slightly more expensive than their equivalents because there may be a relatively small
market for Fair Trade goods, there are additional costs associated with certification, and there is
relatively more money going to the producer in terms of income as well as for business
development (Oxfam, 2009).
Given that there is a lot of information to consider when it comes to sustainability, it’s
safe to assume that those who are more educated will have more tools with which to evaluate
those claims and perhaps more of a motivation to engage with these ideas than the average
person.
Finally, because sustainability is concerned primarily with the future of the planet, it is
rational for a younger person to be more significantly invested in these ideas. While it would not
be irrational for an older person to be concerned with sustainability issues, I contend that the
younger person simply has a more vested interest.
For all these reasons, Northwestern undergraduate students are suitable subjects for this
research. I count them among the “early adopters” of sustainable products, which is to say that
they would be relatively more likely/able to purchase (or think about purchasing) sustainable
goods than people who are older, less educated or a have a lower socio-economic status.
Online Survey
I collected data during two phases: an online survey followed by twenty one-on-one,
semi-structured interviews. The online survey (Appendix B) was used as a method for recruiting
respondents to participate in an interview and was designed to elucidate a rough understanding of
the respondent’s attitudes toward and general knowledge about sustainable products and
practices3. The questionnaire contained queries about the participant’s purchasing habits, his
familiarity with eco-labels like Energy Star, Fair Trade and USDA Organic. He was also asked
3
This data could have been compared with the data I collected during interviews to determine
whether respondents were likely to give consistent answers throughout the study. In light of time
constraints and a lack of manpower, however, I chose not to undertake this analysis.
to indicate his preferences regarding corporate behavior, including how important it is to him
that companies engage in certain sustainable business practices. The survey was distributed to
Northwestern undergraduate students by personal email and was posted on Facebook. Although
some demographic information (age, gender, year in school) was collected, it was not sufficient
to identify any online survey participants.
Scoring the Online Survey
The online survey was administered using an electronic survey via GoogleDocs, which
was accessible from anywhere on the web. Once a respondent completed the survey, the data
was entered onto an excel spreadsheet and then each person’s score was calculated. The scoring
method awards a maximum of 4 points to the answers that indicate more of a preference for or
knowledge about ‘sustainability.’ For instance, during the portion of the online survey that asks
the respondent to indicate how knowledgeable he is about a particular eco-label, answering “very
knowledgeable” will earn the respondent four points. Indicating that he is “somewhat
knowledgeable will earn him 3 points, while “have heard of but am unfamiliar with” is worth 2
points. Selecting that he has “never heard of” this eco-label will earn him 1 point.
Based on the scores from this online survey, I selected twenty willing respondents to
participate in semi-structured interviews. These interviews were intended to explore an
individual’s attitudes toward sustainable business practices as well as his perceptions about the
sustainability potential of different brands in-depth. On the initial online survey there were 120
total points available, and the responses I received ranged from 55 to 102 points. I wanted to
make sure I had interviewees with a relatively wide range of opinions, so I made an effort to
select individuals with varying scores. Individuals were only invited to participate in the
interview if they noted that they would be willing to participate on their online survey.
Semi-Structured Interviews
To get my interviewees talking about the issue of sustainability as it relates to both social
and environmental concerns, I devised a series of (index card) sorting exercises. The first of
these exercises were intended to get my interviewees to share what types of brands strike them as
sustainable and why (Exercise 1). I also wanted to find out how my participants ‘believe’ any
company ‘should’ act (Exercise 2). Finally, I wanted to explore whether any of the brands from
Exercise 1 could be associated/disassociated with the behaviors the interviewee had identified as
‘important’ during Exercise 2 (Exercise 3).
Exercise 1 Instructions: Please sort these branded cards according to how sustainable you
believe them to be. Create three groups: sustainable brands, unsustainable brands, and brands of
unknown sustainability. You may have as many or as few cards in each group as you wish, but
you must sort all the cards into one of the piles.
1. Adidas
2. American Apparel
3. Ben & Jerry’s
4. Chipotle
5. Chiquita
6. Haagen Dazs
7. Kettle Chips
8. SunChips
9. Timberland
10. Urban Outfitters
Once participants sorted these brands I asked a series of questions to explore the participant’s
reasons for sorting the brands into the groups they did.
About the Brands: To incline participants to find some of these brands sustainable and
others unsustainable I selected different brands of similar things, ensuring that one of the brands
in the pair was more sustainable than the other. I did not rely on any objective measure of
sustainability to choose these brands because there does not seem to be any truly objective
method to evaluating the sustainability potential of various companies4.
In the absence of any truly objective measure of sustainability, I wanted to make sure the
companies I chose for my pairings could reasonably be distinguished by their commitment to
sustainability. To do this I read through company reports like 10ks, sustainability & CSR reports,
corporate labor codes, and annual reports to try to get an understanding of each company's
practices in three areas, respectively: environmental impacts, labor standards, and community
engagement.
Based on my research (Appendix C) I would categorize the brands I selected as paired
according to product similarity, but divergent regarding sustainability:
Unsustainable vs. Sustainable
Adidas vs. Timberland

Urban Outfitters vs. American Apparel
Chiquita vs. Chipotle
Haagen Dazs vs. Ben & Jerry’s
SunChips vs. Kettle Chips
Furthermore, since my sample consists of Northwestern undergraduate students, I wanted to
include brands that they would be able to identify, which lead me to focus primarily on food and
clothing brands.
For the purposes of this study I paid little attention to theories about branding that are
common in marketing literature. For instance, some companies use a strong corporate brand to
create product brand recognition, while other companies focus on branding individual products
4
For instance, one of the best-known sustainability measures is the Dow Jones Sustainability
Index, which was launched in 1999 to enable people to track the financial performance of the
leading sustainability driven companies. Each year it releases a review of the companies in the
index and ranks them based on their environmental, economic, and social performance. Research
suggests, however, that DJSI tends to have a large cap bias. In other words, it tends to be biased
toward larger corporations (Cerrin & Dobers, 2000).
(i.e. Nike v. Proctor and Gamble). I had little use for these nuanced understandings of brands
given my study design. Instead, I used the brands as triggers to get participants talking about
how they perceive the sustainability potential of brands in general.
Exercise 2 Instructions: Please sort these behavior cards in to a hierarchy according to how
important it is to you that a company engages in each of these activities. Behaviors may tie for a
position on the scale. If one or more of these behaviors is not important at all to you, please do
not include the card in your ranking system.
1. Employees may organize and bargain collectively

2. Company is actively working to reduce energy and resource consumption
3. Company is working to reduce the amount of waste it creates
4. Company employs independent monitors to oversee overseas production
5. Company practices environmental stewardship even if the country it operates in lacks
environmental regulations
6. Employees have freedom from forced labor
7. Company is engaged with the community and supportive of it
8. Company employs metrics to measure and manage energy consumption
9. Employees earn a living wage
10. Employer sponsors job-related education programs for employees
11. Company routinely collaborates with non-profit groups
After the participants sorted the eleven behaviors into a hierarchy I asked them to explain why
they felt compelled to place the behaviors where they did on their respective hierarchies.
About the Behaviors: These eleven behaviors were selected because they account for a
variety of socially and environmentally sustainable behaviors. Although some of them may not
seem directly relevant to the way we typically think of ‘sustainable business’ (for instance, that
employers ought to provide job-related education programs) I believe these behaviors have the
potential to be carried out to the benefit of society by a company interested in making tradeoffs
between economic, social, and environmental goals to the end of social sustainability.
It is noteworthy that none of these behaviors include corporate behavior related to the
accumulation of profit. For this research I took it as granted that companies are expected to
generate profit in order to fulfill responsibilities to stockholders, so I chose to focus this exercise
particularly on behaviors that tend to be associated with sustainable businesses.
Exercise 3 Instructions: Please use the groups of branded cards and your hierarchy of
behavior cards to answer the following question: Do you associate/disassociate any of these
brands with the corporate behaviors you identified as important?
Data Logistics & Participant Compensation
To ensure participant anonymity each person was assigned a participant code, which was
used to identify him in lieu of any other type of information. The identifying information was
kept separately from the coded data. The interviews were digitally recorded and labeled
according to the participant’s code. These recordings were used only to transcribe the
interviews, and will not be disseminated otherwise. Data collection was confidential, but not
anonymous since I have the ability to trace responses to subject identities.
The interviews were transcribed using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, a crowdsourcing
marketplace that coordinates the use of human intelligence to perform tasks (like transcription)
that computers are unable to do well. I split all of the digital audio files into five-minute
segments and posted them to Mechanical Turk, where I paid $2.00-$2.50 per task. Since
transcribers had no information about any of the study participants and limited access to the
interview data, the participants are not identifiable by the transcribers. Once all the interviews
were transcribed, I checked each one of them for accuracy.
A $1250 grant from the Institute for Sustainability and Energy at Northwestern
University (ISEN) made it possible for me to compensate my participants $30 cash upon the
completion of the semi-structured interview. This grant also paid for transcription services for
the 20 hours of interviews.

Data Analysis
Grounded Theory
Once the interview data was collected and transcribed my advisor and I coded it using
grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). I chose to use grounded theory because it provides a
methodological framework designed to expand on what we know about a particular phenomenon
– in this case consumer attitudes toward sustainable brands. In the method, conceptual properties
and categories may be ‘discovered’ or generated from the qualitative data by systematically
employing a data coding scheme. The primary objective of grounded theory is to expand upon an
explanation of a phenomenon by identifying the key elements of that phenomenon, and then
categorizing the relationships of those elements to the context and process of the experiment. In
other words, the goal is to go from the general to the specific without losing sight of what makes
the subject of a study unique.
For this project, data were coded on three levels. First, the data were examined line by line
in order to discover relevant themes. Next, the data were compared and contrasted to help
elucidate categories and concepts. These two procedures together lead to the development of a
hierarchy of integrated categories, which allowed theory to emerge.
Strauss and Corbin (1994) maintain that theory consists of plausible relationships proposed
among concepts and sets of concepts. Theory focuses on how individuals interact in relation to
the phenomenon under study it asserts a plausible relation between concepts and sets of
concepts, which is derived from data acquired through fieldwork, interviews, observations, and
documents. The resulting theory can be reported in a narrative framework or as a set of
propositions (Dey, 1999).

I have organized my final codes into a concept map, which should provide a visual
representation of the types of themes and relationships I identified in the interviews. There is a
discussion of each code in the Results & Discussion section.

Figure 1. Concept map representing the relationships between final codes

Results & Discussion
The Early Adopters
As I expected, Northwestern Undergraduate students counted themselves among the people who
ought to be concerned with sustainability. Although they did not count themselves among the
most economically advantaged (poor college students) they did mention their higher level of
education as well as their youth as motivations for caring about sustainability.
You should be as well informed as you can, I think. And I think, you know, a lot
of people do their homework, at least the people I talk to. People from
Northwestern, the educated, young segment of the population – I think a lot of
people here have done their research on brands. Participant 36 #133-136
I think that it’s a relatively new idea and I think the stigma is that it’s more of an
educated idea, so young people in college – colleges are stereotyped as the place
where radical ideas come from. Participant 35 #308-310
Probably people that appreciate nature so, like people that would like go on a
hiking trip. People that study it, people that are more educated definitely have
better knowledge of like consequences and actions and whatnot. So probably
more educated, more environmentally conscious, and more nature loving people.
[And] certainly younger because this information has come out more recently
and it is penetrating more to the younger crowd. Participant 27 #188-196
Results and Discussion of Exercise 1
The Structure of Sustainable Brands: Participants tended to frame brands as “sustainable” if
they perceived them to be (1) a small business (2) a business with transparent operations and (3)
a business that produces expensive products. The notion of transparent operations was heavily
associated with domestic (U.S.) production, local products, and products produced by co-ops.
Small
On her feelings about big-business:
I don't know whether or not this is just a contrived thing of American culture but
I, I definitely seem to trust it more if it's a smaller company. Um, for instance if I
see, like, P&G says that they're, um, Proctor & Gamble has, like, cut energy by,
like, a large, large percentage, or like, has made something organically I'm much
more -- I'm much less likely to trust it than, like, if I see a smaller, like, farm
company, um, saying the same thing. – Participant 26 #344-348
On why he placed Ben & Jerry’s in the sustainable category:
Just the whole idea of the theme that they’re trying to adopt it seemed like it was
"alternative" to the big company – big corporation. And they started they started
small, so I just associate those things with sustainable practices and other good
things. Participant 27 #28-30
On why small businesses are more free to pursue sustainable strategies:
Larger corporations have a…larger pressure to make more money and smaller
corporations can be based more around ideals. Participant 25 #414-416
Transparent
On why she sorted American Apparel into the sustainable category:
I mean, they are American Apparel; I think all of their clothing is made in the
United States. It is -- I don’t know if it’s part of their mantra to be like fair in the
labor wages and practices but I hope so -- assume so because it’s in this country.
Participant 35 #11-14
On how Adidas could prove it is sustainable:
I don't know what kind of campaign they could put on. They'd try and keep jobs
here and not exploit workers in other countries, you know, keep wages up well.
Decrease the waste they produce. Again they'd have to show me that they were
letting consumers know they were doing that. I'm not exactly sure how they
would -- if they could directly make commercials to show that they are making
efforts to stay sustainable. Participant 21 #146-150
Expensive
On the expense of sustainable clothing:
When I see things marketed as “environmentally friendly organic cotton” they’re

way more expensive, so it’s hard for even me to make the decision to buy them.
On purchasing ethically made clothing:
You have to go to specialty stores, but then it’s really expensive -- out of my price
range. You’ll see a lot of organic cotton, or things made out of hemp, or bamboo.
So I think it’s there but you have to go looking for it and you can’t always afford
it unless you are some chi chi environmentalist. Participant 9 #243-245
The Structure of Unsustainable Brands: Participants tended to frame a brand as
“unsustainable” if they perceived it to be affiliated with (1) a big business (2) a business with
opaque operations and (3) a business that produces cheap products. The notion of opaque
operations was heavily associated with producing goods overseas in areas like China, South
America, and Southeast Asia. These factors mirror the perceptions relied upon to distinguish the
“sustainable” brands.
Big
On the sustainability potential of Unilever v. Ben & Jerry’s:
Unilever is a bigger corporation so I don’t know the specifics but I feel like with a
bigger corporation it’s easier to move away from any mission they see as
unprofitable. Whereas Ben and Jerry’s might just do stuff because the founders
want to do it and it’s a good thing to do, a bigger corporation might not be as
concerned with that. Participant 10 #88-92
On why he sorted Chiquita as unsustainable:
I assume they’re also a big company so are not really concerned with how their
bananas are made in terms of environmental impact because they’re just trying to
make money. Participant 10 #135-136
Opaque
On his skepticism about SunChips sustainable advertising:
I remember seeing those commercials that saying that their chips are solar
powered and there are like those people dancing in the field, which is just so
ridiculous, but I mean I’m sure they couldn’t say it unless it was partly true. But
it’s like, okay, you’re giving me no actual information. You’re saying solar
power and you’re showing happy people dancing and eating SunChips. That’s just
like all right...that doesn’t tell me anything. Participant 40 #274-280
On why she sorted Urban Outfitters as unsustainable:
Urban Outfitters I put as unsustainable simply because on their labels, I mean,

most of their clothing is coming from Southeast Asia and China, and based on
broad sweeping generalizations and prior knowledge, most of the factories where
these are made are big polluters, they are not necessarily paying fair wages.
On why he sorted Adidas as unsustainable:
When I think shoe companies I think sweatshops. And that's pretty much the same
for the two clothing companies as well. I just think child laborers in China or
something. Participant 27 #104-105
Cheap
On the price of producing sustainable goods:
There’s always going to be a price issue because one of the reasons they’re made
so unsustainably is because it would cost money to do it sustainably, so I often
thought to myself if I knew that something was more environmentally friendly
and the difference in price was not prohibitive, I would actively support that.
On why he placed Adidas in the unsustainable group:
I know Adidas works with rubber for example for their shoes, so I'm sure that it's
cheaper to synthetically make rubber in a less-sustainable way. Again, I don't
know anything that Adidas does in that direction I just assumed that they are
looking for profit margins since I've never heard them advertising anything
towards sustainability. Participant 6 #183-186
I think Wal-Mart is sort of notorious for poor labor practices and that’s why
they’re so cheap. Participant 35 #698-699
When participants categorized a brand as being of “unknown sustainability” they
attributed some factors from the “sustainable” category as well as some factors from the
“unsustainable” category to the brand. Timberland was sorted into this pile on several occasions
because my participants had a difficult time deciding whether the brand’s association with nature
was indicative of sustainable business. Both Participant 43 and Participant 27 saw a potential
conflict between the ‘naturalist’ philosophy of the brand and the way it is manufactured, leading
them to place it in the unknown category.
I don't really know anything about Timberland. The only thing I really associate
them with is an outdoorsy back to nature philosophy, but I don't really identify
that as - I mean you think they serve to like outdoors oriented clientele that they
would be environmentally responsible, but that doesn't mean they're socially
responsible and it doesn't actually mean they're environmentally responsible, so I
don't really know. Participant 43 #187-191
Timberland I had no idea either way. I had my clothing manufacturer pointing me

towards bad, but there are all sorts of naturalist stuff. So that was a good pull and
I decided to put it in the middle, but I don’t really know. Participant 27 #173-175
Although I recruited participants who claimed to be differently committed to caring about
sustainable business practices and buying sustainable goods, these respondents adhered to these
frameworks relatively consistently, so the way participants characterized “sustainable” and
“unsustainable” brands was basically consistent across responses.
Affective Qualities of Sustainable and Unsustainable Brands: Participants were also likely to
associate “sustainable” and “unsustainable” brands with different affective qualities. Sustainable
brands were characterized as brands from companies with “authentically sustainable business
practices” as well as a “concern” for communities, the environment, and their employees.
For instance, Participant 29 considered SunChips authentically sustainable because they
were engaged in operating sustainably before it was popular.
They were doing that a few years before the whole fad, to my knowledge, and so I
think it’s something they actually care about – it’s a priority to the corporation or
its directors that “this is our model, this is our marketing, this is who we are.
Participant 22 characterized Ben & Jerry’s as authentically sustainable because of the
company was started with sustainable values in mind.
I can't say…that I put that much research into the sustainability of Ben & Jerry's,
but knowing how they started...just like together as like these two liberal guys and
everything like that. And although it has grown to this huge corporation I feel
like they still have some moral, more progressive values behind what they do.
Regarding a company’s concern for communities, people, and the environment, Participant 11
noted that SunChips might be considered sustainable because it is healthy, which is good for
people and may reflect a larger concern for workers and the environment.
I felt they probably wouldn't be as bad as someone like Lays because of the fact
that like the product itself is marginally more healthy, so maybe that like
translates into a little bit of a greater consciousness about workers rights and
environmental rights. Participant 11 #84-87
Participant 17 was willing to sort Timberland into the sustainable category based on the
fact that they seem to care about nature.
They have a tree on their logo, and if you care about trees and the outdoors, then
you are probably sustainable in some capacity. Participant 17 #333-334
Participant 26 noted that she would be more willing to sort companies who are engaged
with the community into the sustainable group. Interacting with members of the
community is associated with concern on the part of the business.
For a company to be well-rounded I think that the company should just interact on
a more personal level with the people it’s working to serve -- the people who
purchase the products. Participant 26 #473-475
Unsustainable brands, on the other hand, were characterized as brands from companies
that had either no sustainable business practices or sustainable claims based on minimal actions
and falsely constructed images of sustainability. For instance, when Participant 38 talked about
whether one should trust organic labels, he alluded to the notion that some companies would
purposely lie to consumers to sell sustainable products.
They don’t realize that words like organic can be like argued for if they were
actually like contested. Someone could easily just say like well yeah, it’s organic
because I do this one thing and, you know, I am not claiming that I do all these
other things, I just say it’s organic. And I think a lot of companies are exploiting
that, because people are really getting into like eco, into anything that you put
“eco” in front of they’re like, “Oh, that’s environmentally friendly, I’ll pay an
extra like 50 cents for that.” Participant 38 #110-115
Similarly, Participant 26 noted that SunChips should not necessarily be considered
sustainable regardless of how it is marketed because a company that does not exude
sustainable qualities owns it.
I think it does help Frito-Lay's image, to have this company that's considered
healthier and made through means that don't harm the environment as much. So I
think it does help Frito-Lay as a brand, but it also kind of takes away from the
impact that SunChips have, because they are made by this giant conglomerate that
doesn't necessarily stand for sustainability. Participant 26 #130-13
Results and Discussion of Exercise 2
Behaviors at the Top of the Hierarchy: In brief, respondents were asked about a number of
characteristics of companies and their products that would typically be characterized as
“sustainable.” My participants tended to sort these behaviors with an eye to ethical concerns,
especially those that are not easily dismissed, by placing broad goals at the top of the hierarchy
and appealing to moral values and ethical codes when defending the position of those corporate
behaviors. The specific behaviors they chose to rank at the top differed between respondents, but
often included basic environmental concerns like “company is actively working to reduce
energy and resource consumption” and “company is working to reduce the amount of waste
it creates” as well as relatively uncontroversial issues regarding basic human rights like and
“employees have freedom from forced labor.”
For instance, Participant 46 explained “employees earn a living wage” was at the top of
her hierarchy because it is a matter of respect and should be prioritized.
I think earning a living wage is just like a respect to the people who are, like the,
like are the actual force behind the production of your product. And I think -- I
mean, I just think a living wage is really important because it like, just like
ensures that the employee stays above water and if they get sick, or if they have
an accident, or if they, if they – if their spouse loses their job, they have enough
savings and they have enough -- they have like a moderate cushion, not to go, not
to go like below the poverty line, so I just think it’s important to like treat
employees with that respect. Participant 46 #180-186
Participant 6 appealed to human rights when he ranked “employees have freedom from
forced labor” at the top of his hierarchy.
I’m against slavery. I think it's wrong, um, I guess I've never been asked this
before. I guess it's a human right than a freedom of your life. Participant 6 #363-
365
Participant 36 also appealed to human rights in his defense of “employees have freedom
from forced labor” as his highest ranked behavior.
I think that's just from, like, a human rights standpoint, you know, it's—forced
labor is, you know, really morally indefensible. Participant 36 #432-433
Behaviors at the Bottom of the Hierarchy: The bottom of hierarchies tended to consist
of corporate behaviors that were perceived to require stringent corporate regulation or a
significant expenditure of corporate capital. These behaviors overwhelmingly included
“employees my organize and bargain collectively,” “employees earn a living wage,”
“company employs independent monitors to oversee overseas production,” “company is
engaged with the community and supportive of it,” “employer sponsors job related
education programs for employees,” “company practices environmental stewardship even
if the country it operates in lacks environmental regulations” and “company routinely
collaborates with non-profit groups.” Most often participants would express a favorable
disposition toward these ideas in theory, but see them as contradictory to the generation of
capital.
Participant 6 identified the preference for capital over environmental protection
when he explained why less developed countries allow more pollution than more
developed countries.
I think it all comes down to economics. In more developed countries were we can
afford to put levies on pollution, we do. In less developed countries, they value
the return on their industry more, so they allow pollution and contamination to
occur, but I still think it's bad. Participant 6 #460-463
Participant 3 appealed to the benefit of simply having a job, even if the wages were
unreasonably low by her standards.
And that even if they do like make their goods in America, they’re still likely,
very likely, using material that came from, you know, somewhere where they pay
people less than a dollar a day, but that’s a whole different story cause they do
some of the best jobs in those regions. Participant 3 #107-110
Participant 29 also appealed to the benefit of simply having a job when he argued that
there is some value to performing sweatshop labor that could be lost if wages rose.
I think it’s good that there’s any money in those places at all, and if they had to
pay a living wage they probably wouldn’t be in those places, and there would be
no money for those people. Participant 29 #330-332
Participant 18 considered how companies would be impacted by being made to publish
information about their energy usage, and was most concerned by the capital impacts.
I mean if every single company would have to do it, then it'd probably be good for
the consumer just because they would know which companies hurting the
environment and which ones are making more of an effort to conserve it. But I
just see -- it would just take a blow to the company itself -- just a lot more money
to put out and a lot more work. Participant 18 #438-442
Concern for Capital: It appears that my respondents (and probably Americans in
general) see some sort of “good” emanating from the existence of profit-generating firms, which
is capital. At some level respondents are willing to trade socially and environmentally
sustainable practices for capital concerns, and would expect others to agree – even those others
who were employed in the sweatshop or who were citizens of the polluted country. Respondents
also alluded to the negative impacts of regulating negative effects by noting that regulations tend
to make capital unhappy and likely to flee to less regulated areas, which would disadvantage the
population who insisted on regulation in the first place.

Participants associate firms and capital with “opportunity” in that firms and capital
provide a structure that people may engage in to make money for themselves, which can be used
to satisfy their desires. Anything that adversely affects the firms by making it harder for them to
generate profit is a direct risk to the individual engaged in the market.
Historical Roots of Concern for Capital: The notion that an individuals pursuit of
capital has beneficial consequences for the society has deep roots in the American psyche that
can be traced back to Bernard Mandeville’s Fable of the Bees, which elucidated many key
principles of classical economics including the division of labor and the invisible hand. The
Fable of the Bees also propositioned the idea that the true causes of social welfare and social
progress are a result of human vice – people work out of greed, are polite out of self-interest, and
keep the law for fear of punishment.
As Sharpers, Parasites, Pimps, Players,

Pick-Pockets, Coiners, Quacks, Sooth-Sayers,
And all those, that, in Enmity
With down-right Working, cunningly
Convert to their own Use the Labour
Of their good-natur'd heedless Neighbour.
These were called Knaves; but, bar the Name,
The grave Industrious were the Same (Mandeville, 1705).
This notion was picked up on by Adam Smith and further propagated in the Wealth of Nations,
which was undoubtedly influential in laying the basic groundwork for capitalist economic theory
in America. Smith’s version of this concept is as follows: “It is not from the benevolence of the
butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own
interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love” (Smith, 1776).
Stability = Unsustainability: The companies that my participants identified as superior
at generating profit fit well into the “unsustainable” schema identified during the first sorting
exercise. Participant 11 noted that bigger companies are more likely to be solely seeking profit
at the expense of responsible business.
I think that smaller, more independent companies usually are formed with more
sense of responsibility and since their share, I mean, it's sort of, it's sort of hard to
tell because like, they might be formed just to become a larger company and in
order to reap the benefits - the economic benefits - of it's product, but I also feel
like more of them are probably [pause] more sustainability minded than the large
companies that have already been, you know, corrupted by our capitalist process.
Participant 25 also identified big businesses profit generation at the expense of ‘ideals.’
Larger corporations have a…larger pressure to make more money and smaller
corporations can be based more around ideals. Participant 25 #414-416
Indeed, participants characterized these companies as likely to take advantage of regulatory
differences (cheap labor, few environmental regulations) between or within nations in order to
capitalize on the imbalance. For instance, Participant 36 acknowledged the size and relative
economic success of Chiquita Brands, Inc. while noting their exploitive relationship to laborers.
I think large corporations that make their product in South America, I feel more
often than not, have a tendency to do unsustainable things, like pay living wages,
bad factory conditions, exploit labor. Participant 36 #413-415
Participant 11 had a similar response to McDonalds while attempting to decipher whether to sort
Chipotle in to the sustainable or unsustainable category.
I know it is owned by McDonald’s, which is a really large multinational

corporation not known for treating its workers well and known for paying a very
low wage. Participant 11 #242-244
These attitudes signal a fundamental disconnect in that participants associate unsustainable firms
with profit and an opportunity to accumulate monetary wealth for themselves, but they also
associate these firms with negative impacts like harming the environment, employees, and the
communities. While the presence of a profit-generating firm is good for individuals it may also
generate significant harms, which could not be rectified without raising (environmental and
labor) standards. According to my respondents raising standards could make capital likely to
flee, which may jeopardize citizens’ chances at prosperity. Indeed, my participants associate
economic stability (capital generation) with businesses they identify as unsustainable (big,
opaque, cheap goods) and out of a concern for capital are not ready to associate economic
stability with sustainable production, no matter how positively they view sustainability.
Although primarily theoretical, concern for capital constitutes a significant barrier to purchasing
sustainable goods.
Moving from Stability=Unsustainability to Stability=Sustainability
Right now, firms have relatively little reason to make trade offs between their economic
ends and social/environmental goods, since their only formal end is to generate profit. Many of
my respondents, however, expressed the idea that consumers could convince firms (that seek
profit) to produce socially and environmentally sustainable goods by “voting with their dollar” or
purchasing a sustainable good in lieu of the unsustainable version of that good. This should send
a signal to the market that sustainable goods are preferred to unsustainable ones and may make it
relatively easier for a company to profit from producing sustainable goods. Participant 26, 40,
and 25 alluded to the impact consumers could have if they demanded sustainable products.
I am kind of working under the assumption that if the primary consumers of a

product or of a company’s product aren’t really pushing for sustainability efforts,
that the company is less likely to make those efforts on their own. Participant 26
#206-209
Whole Foods has done it successfully, and I think that consumer tastes will
always kind of triumph over cost. If you can get enough people to buy something
because they care about it then I think that’s a pretty successful marketing
technique. Participant 40 #539-542
The importance of [sustainability] depend[s] on how the consumers that want -

like, if everybody, like, knew that like, oh, Adidas exploits Indonesian workers
and then, like, everyone hated that, then they would all buy, you know, American-
made or, you know, better shoes in a sense. And then obviously Adidas would
have to change their priorities drastically. Participant 25 #232-236
Most respondents agreed, however, that sustainable goods are currently (1) more
expensive to produce (for the company), more expensive to purchase (for the consumer), (2)
relatively difficult to understand (requiring a intricate knowledge of sustainability), and (3)
harder to find (available only at specialty stores, in special aisles, or on the internet). At this point
it is relatively unlikely that consumers could encourage companies to make this transition purely
with their own buying power, as there are several barriers to purchasing these products.
Expensive to Produce
On transitioning businesses to more environmentally friendly technology:

In lot of situations it will require internal personnel infrastructure that might not
already exist. Like, you got to have consultants. You probably have to have
different sort of engineers. It is going to be expensive, but I feel it is important for
the long-term viability of the industry and the planet. Participant 9 #530
I just think that if a company is willing to put the extraordinary resources into
sustainability when regulations for that don’t even exist, like they could get away
with it, but they don’t, then I feel like it’s just exceptionally admirable because it
is expensive. Participant 3 #392-396
Expensive to Purchase
On the extent to which all Americans could purchase sustainable goods:

In our society I don’t think everyone has [the option to purchase sustainable
products] because of the lower, middle, and upper class segregations. It’s more
expensive because not everything is sustainable nowadays – it’s more of a
luxury. Participant 33 #679-681
On who would be likely to buy sustainable products

The market was a very like, small circle of people who were getting sort of keen
to these issues, and they could have a product sold for them, but they were like so
educated, and such a small minority. They were probably willing to pay more
for it than someone else who wasn't. Participant 36 #264-267
Hard to understand
I feel like the more sustainable people are often found in more affluent areas,
because they can afford to pay premium for sustainability…and these people have
more time to invest into understanding sustainability. Participant 6 #155-158
I feel like environmental and labor practice concerns are one of those things
where like if you aren’t always thinking about it and always on the ball, and make
it part of your daily life you’re not going to be the kind of person to adopt it. It’s
one of those things, you hear about it once and you’re like ok, cool, but it’s an
ever changing spectrum and to always to be able to make the most knowledgeable
choice is not an easy thing. Participant 40 #799-783
Hard to find
You have to go to specialty stores, but then it’s really expensive -- out of my price
range. You’ll see a lot of organic cotton, or things made out of hemp, or bamboo.
So I think it’s there but you have to go looking for it and you can’t always afford
it unless you are some chi chi environmentalist. Participant 9 #243-245
If you have a company you don't want people knowing the bad side of you, so I'm
willing to bet that some of these major corporations -- companies are going to do
their best to kind of like hush that down. Participant 22 #441-444
Policy Recommendations
In order to encourage companies to make tradeoffs between social, environmental, and
economic concerns, steps must be taken to lower the barriers to consuming sustainable products:
(1) high price, (2) lack of information, and (3) lack of availability, and (4) concern for capital so
they may experience sales growth. By breaking down these barriers consumers may begin to see
the real costs of the products they purchase, which may diminish their concern for capital, or
their willingness to preference capital over sustainability concerns when they are in conflict.
Price
Price is the largest obstacle to purchases of green products, according to a survey of
3,600 consumers by the UK Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (McKinsey,
2008). Many of these products are more expensive than their equivalents for good reasons.
First, there may be a relatively small market for these products, there are additional costs
associated with certification, and there is relatively more money going to the producer in terms
of income as well as for business development.
While there may be costs associated with sustainable goods, there are also significant
costs associated with unsustainable production, which are considered negative externalities5. In
the case of externalities, prices do not reflect the full costs or benefits of producing or consuming
a product or service, and too much or too little of the good will be produced or consumed in
terms of overall costs and benefits to society. For example, when workers are severely underpaid
for their labor (as in the case of unregulated sweatshop and agricultural labor), inadequate wages
impose significant costs on the laborer and his or her family as well as the society who must
address the multiplicity of problems related to poverty -- inadequate access to nutritional food,
education, health care, housing, transportation, etc. When the full cost labor is not taken into
account the product is produced too cheaply and does not reflect the costs of production like
providing an adequate standard of living for those employed producing it. Another example of an
externality is that automobiles are not priced to take into account the costs of the pollution they
generate. Because this cost is not included, the price of an automobile does not fully reflect the
cost of the automobile to society.
Pigouvian Taxes: To confront parties with the issue of externalities the economist Arthur
Pigou proposed taxing the goods that were the source of the negative externality. These
Pigouvian taxes would correct the price to accurately reflect the cost of the goods' production to
society, thereby internalizing the costs associated with producing the good (Baumol, 1972). An
example of a Pigouvian tax is a carbon tax, which increases the competitiveness of non-carbon
technologies like solar, hydro, wind, and nuclear power compared to the traditional burning of
5
An externality is a cost or benefit not transmitted through prices, which is incurred by a party
who did not agree to the action that caused the cost or benefit.
fossil fuels, thus helping to protect the environment while raising revenues for non-carbon
technologies.
A carbon tax, however, must be administered worldwide in order to ameliorate the global
warming already under way (Nader & Heaps, 2008). It would probably require a global body to
adjust and regulate this tax, but considering the unsuccessful nature of the Copenhagen climate
summit, we may be quite far from establishing any sort of legally binding agreement to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions. Furthermore, within Pigou's framework, the changes involved are
marginal, and the size of the externality is assumed to be small enough not to distort the rest of
the economy. Some argue, however, the impact of climate change could result in catastrophe and
non-marginal changes (Helm, 2005).
The California Effect: The California Effect, or the use of market incentives to promote
the ratcheting upward of regulatory standards provides evidence that it may be possible for
developed countries to impose higher regulatory standards without a significant loss of capital. In
1970 the Clean Air Act Amendment permitted California to enact stricter emissions standards
than the rest of the United States. Although automobile manufacturers had to spend extra capital
to produce more efficient cars, they did not simply abandon California as a market. This shows
political jurisdictions that develop stricter product standards may have the ability to force
producers to design products that meet those standards or else deny them access to its markets
(Vogel, 1997).
Developed countries, like the state of California, are in a position to establish higher
standards to encourage the adoption of social and environmental standards around the world.
These standards might ensure things like living wages, safe working conditions, corporate
community engagement and environmental stewardship in developing as well as developed

nations. As developing countries look for ways to access the markets of developed countries to
fuel their economic growth, these market incentives may actually bolster the social and
environmental standards of companies and countries. Without these market incentives from
developed countries, however, governments and companies around the world would have
relatively little reason to bolster their social and environmental standards. Instead, they may
focus on creating cheap exports, which may not be compatible with regulation in favor of
sustainability.
The United States’ decision to import sustainably produced goods may be especially
helpful to temper the populist anger that my respondents expressed toward big businesses that
produce overseas. While it is not necessarily true that these companies are the least sustainable,
my respondents negative attitudes toward them and were quick to characterize them as
exploitive. If the U.S. made it known that they would only import goods that met certain socially
and environmentally sustainable criteria, the citizens would have little reason to assume that the
goods they purchase were made in undesirable conditions.
It is unlikely, however, that the U.S. would decide unilaterally to begin exclusively
importing sustainable goods, as it would put them at a distinct disadvantage in the market.
Again, it may be most effective to establish an international body of developed countries that are
willing to condition access to their markets on producing goods sustainably. To avoid
unreasonable or unequal expectations, I suggest that each of the developed countries also adopt
these standards of sustainability.
Creating international bodies to levy carbon taxes and set global labor standards,
however, is a very difficult process. In light of this difficulty, perhaps the real question we
should ask is not “how expensive are sustainable products,” but “how do my purchasing habits
affect the global population and environment?” One way to do this is to ensure that consumers
understand the financial and environmental returns on their investment in sustainable products.
Indeed, consumers may be more willing to try new ones—especially those that cost more—when
they find it easy to track the savings (McKinsey, 2008). One way to do this is to educate the
consumer about the product decisions he could potentially make.
Information
Educate the Consumer: Because green products are often difficult to comprehend, the
businesses that sell them ought to see themselves as educators rather than just profit generators.
It is important for a company not only to explain its own products, but also the larger issues like
environmental degradation, climate change, and social instability in order to place their product
at the forefront of consumers minds when it comes to sustainability.
The Difficult Diaper Decision: The complex nature of this process is worth nothing.
First of all, what should be considered sustainable can be a complicated choice, which can be
affected by vested interests to promote particular products. Take, for instance, one’s choice to
use disposable or cloth diapers for his new baby. Since the average child uses over 5,000 diapers
during the 30-month period before toilet training a parent may wish to choose the more
sustainable type. In an attempt to convince parents that using disposable diapers is not overly
degrading of the environment Proctor and Gamble commissioned a three-year study at the
University of Michigan to determine the effects of disposable diapers once they enter the landfill.
The research maintains that disposable diapers are environmentally safe (Proctor & Gamble,
1989). Despite this research, however, neither disposable nor cloth diapers can be easily
identified as the sustainable choice (Smith & Pitts, n.d.).

Disposable diapers account for about 80 percent of the diapers used in the US.
Convenience is the major reason given by parents, particularly in dual-career families where time
to care for cloth diapers may be limited. Group day care restrictions, which may require single
use diapers also influences the preferred diapering method. Families who lack access to laundry
equipment may also find cloth diapers burdensome to care for (Smith & Pitts, n.d.). Disposable
diapers account for an estimated 1.5 to 2.0 percent of municipal solid waste. With landfills
reaching capacity, solutions for the disposal of all solid waste is a concern, and disposable
diapers generate four times as much waste as cloth diapers. An archaeological study of garbage
from 1977 to 1985 determined that disposable diapers accounted for about 1% of all solid waste
in landfills (Rathje, 1989).
Although disposable diapers pose environmental concerns from a solid waste perspective,
cloth diapers raise concerns regarding air and water pollution. The reusable nature of cloth
diapers reduces the solid waste problem, but laundering of cloth diapers requires water, energy,
and chemicals in the form of laundry detergent, which may contribute to water pollution.
Franklin Associates, Ltd. (1990) conducted a study that concluded that cloth diapers use about
twice as much energy and four times as much water as disposables and created greater air and
water pollution than disposable diapers.
So, although disposable diapers use more raw material in the manufacturing process,
cloth diapers use greater resources for to maintain them. This means that there might be two
potentially environmentally responsible choices. Where land is plentiful, but water is in short
supply, disposable diapers may be the best choice. On the other hand, areas that have an
overabundance of trash in landfills but have adequate water supplies may opt for the cloth diaper.
It is also possible that the most environmentally responsible choice is choosing some
combination of disposable and cloth diapers.
Energy Star: Clearly, it is difficult to accurately assess the sustainability impacts of
products, and it may not be appropriate to fully trust companies to identify the most sustainable
product; for these reasons, nonprofits and government agencies should also take up the cause of
sustainability education. Energy Star provides a model. This program, a joint effort launched by
the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the US Department of Energy in 1992,
educates consumers about the way suitable products can cut energy use, save consumers money,
and protect the environment. Every appliance that meets government energy-efficiency standards
can carry the Energy Star label, which has gained widespread consumer recognition and trust.
Because federal regulations mandate energy labels for certain kinds of equipment, almost half of
the air conditioners sold in the United States during 2005 carried the Energy Star sticker
(McKinsey, 2008).
Unfortunately, it can be difficult to know when to trust eco-labels like Energy Star.
Indeed, there are about 600 eco-labels worldwide being used by companies and non-profit
organizations (80 in the United States). “They cover almost every category imaginable -- from
textiles to tea and tourism, from forest products to food” (Elperin, 2010). Because certification is
a self-regulated industry the integrity of these labels varies wildly. So, while the best certification
systems may have brought increased accountability to markets that used to be largely
unregulated most other certification systems make claims that cannot be proved. EcoLogo, a
consultant on verification, surveyed more than 2,200 North American products and found that
more than 98 percent lacked proof to justify their claims (Case, 2008).
In order for eco-labels to be effective, it’s essential that a body take responsibility for
ensuring that the certification systems in place are legitimate. Without this assurance, purchasing
sustainable products is unlikely to become any easier. This responsibility could fall on a
government agency, like the EPA, or a trustworthy non-profit organization. In the absence of a
body like this, it may be more effective for consumers to look for other tools that can help them
access more dependable information about the goods they buy.
GoodGuide and other Decision Helping Tools: Mobile phone applications like the
GoodGuide provide an inventive way for consumers to directly access complex information
regarding the sustainability impacts of the goods they are about to purchase simply by scanning
the barcode. The GoodGuide aggregates and analyzes data on both product and company
performance and employs a health hazard assessment, an environmental impact assessment, and
a social impact assessment to identify major impacts to human health, the environment, and
society. Each of these categories is then further analyzed within specific issue areas, such as
climate change policies, labor concerns, and product toxicity. Currently, GoodGuide’s database
includes over 1,100 base criteria with which they evaluate products and companies (Good Guide,
2010).
Given the well-established notion that a trade-off between effort and accuracy is inherent
to human decision making (Payne et al., 1993), an application like this will reduce the effort
required to make sustainable product decisions as well as improve the accuracy of these
decisions by giving consumers access to more dependable information in an easy to use format.
An application like this does not require consumers to trust the claims on a product’s package or
eco-labels, although they may choose to. Rather, they will be more able to capitalize on the
enormous amount of information available about sustainability in a more objective way, which
may enable them to make more accurate sustainable product decisions than they could otherwise.
Availability
Sustainable Product Placement: Even if consumers have the information they need to
buy sustainable products, they are relatively hard to find. An informal survey of 23 retailers in
Chicago and in the San Francisco Bay area found that fewer than half sold sustainable products
(other than organic foods and CFLs), and among the minority that did sell these products only
about 10 percent stocked more than one brand option (McKinsey, 2008). If stores simply
stocked more sustainable products (including products produced locally), consumers would
suddenly have the opportunity to purchase these products more widely. This could be especially
effective if consumers actually understood the social and environmental returns on their
purchasing decisions, as I discussed in the last section. Stocking and supporting local products
may also help the cause by emphasizing the personal relevance of the products.
Leveraging Sustainable Products: Marketers have been leveraging products to
influence consumers for decades, and given that companies have taken to identifying many more
of their products as “green” there is some evidence that this is also taking place in the realm of
sustainable goods. (Drumwright, 1994; Davis, 1992; Mayer, et al, 1996). The idea simple:
leverage media to showcase a product or service being used as part of everyday life in order
to shape consumer brand perception and impact purchase behavior. For instance, in 2002 Busta
Rhymes and (the artist formerly known as) Puff Daddy collaborated on an ode to a cognac brand,
Courvoisier. After the release of Pass the Courvoisier Part II, the brand’s sales jumped 20
percent (Sauer, 2010).

While Busta and P.Diddy may or may not be the ideal spokespeople for sustainable
products, the basic concept still stands -- put a product in the hands of a celebrity and consumers
will interpret this as a de facto endorsement. It is important, however, that the products that are
marketed in this way could actually be considered sustainable (rather than greenwashed).
Obviously it should not be acceptable for any company to purposely greenwash their products,
but it is relatively common today. Perhaps individual spokespeople should make more of a effort
to evaluate the sustainability potential of the good before they agree to position it as sustainable.
Likewise, consumers should be mindful of the information they are receiving may not be entirely
truthful, given that it is being propagated by celebrities and for-profit entities
NBC’s Behavior Placement: Although specific advertisements may not always
influence a person to buy a specific product, political scientist Shanto Iyengar argues that the
media exercise ‘agenda control,’ which is to say that it has the potential to shape what you think
about as well as what you consider important and true. For instance, the prominence of issues in
the news media – fear of crime or concern about traffic congestion or worry about the condition
of the economy – is correlated with the public’s perception that those issues are important
(Dearing & Rogers, 1996; Iyengar & Kinder, 1987).
Along the lines of agenda control, NBC’s network executives have asked producers of
almost every primetime and daytime show to incorporate a green storyline at least once a year
since 2007. In just one week during April 2010 the detectives on "Law and Order" investigated a
cash-for-clunkers scam, a nurse on "Mercy" organized a group bike ride, Al Gore made a guest
appearance on "30 Rock," and "The Office" turned Dwight Schrute into a cape-wearing
superhero obsessed with recycling. The tactic, according to General Electric (GE), owner of
NBC, is called "behavior placement.” It is designed to sway viewers to adopt actions they see
modeled in their favorite shows, and it helps sell advertisements to marketers who want to
associate their brands with a feel-good, socially aware programming (Chozick, 2010).
Clearly GE wants people to be thinking positively about sustainability. Why? Well, it is
worth nothing that in 2005 GE unveiled the $90 million “Ecomagination” PR and advertising
campaign, which is designed to convince consumers that GE is helping to solve the world's
biggest environmental challenges while driving profitable growth for GE and its shareholders.
A September 2007 analysis of “Ecomagination” noted that GE continued to sell coal-
fired steam turbines and was delving deeper into oil-and-gas production. Meanwhile, its finance
unit was seeking coal-related investments including power plants, which are a leading cause of
carbon-dioxide emissions in the U.S. GE, however, is on track to sell $14 billion of its self-
described environmentally friendly products this year, and projects the total will grow more than
10 percent annually through 2010. GE also says it reduced its own greenhouse-gas emissions by
4 percent between 2004 and 2006. Although the company does not count emissions from many
power plants that are partially owned by the company, the Wall Street Journal described the
discounted power plant emissions as "an unknown but unquestionably significant amount”
(Kranhold, 2007).
Sustainability is undeniably a complicated issue for enormous companies like General
Electric. They have the money to influence consumers to think positively about sustainability,
and they have the ability to directly manufacture sustainable products. It is important, then, to
monitor the activities of companies like GE to ensure that they’re “walking the talk” – that is
producing their goods in a sustainable manner rather than just greenwashing products to leverage
them in the marketplace. This may take the form of non-profit or government analysis of
company behavior and may extend to the individual consumer, as he makes use of more
dependable information about sustainability to make his product decisions.
Benefits to Sustainable Companies
Once consumers overcome barriers to purchasing sustainable products, these products
will experience sales growth. Firms that have a strong position in the market for sustainable
goods can stay ahead of regulation and protect their market shares from competitors. The most
proactive companies will lead regulation, and may even push for stricter regulations that will put
their less savvy competitors at a disadvantage. Newcomers, in turn, can steal market share from
existing companies by appealing to the growing legions of consumers concerned about
sustainability.
Conclusions
This qualitative analysis of college students’ attitudes toward sustainable goods was
designed to add nuance to the way we understand how consumers perceive sustainable goods. In
the semi-structured interviews I noticed a consistent way of framing “sustainable brands” as
compared to “unsustainable brands.” Namely, sustainable brands were associated with small
businesses, transparent operations (U.S., local, co-ops), and expensive goods, while
unsustainable brands were associated with big businesses, opaque operations (overseas
production), and cheap goods. Moreover, sustainable brands were also associated with certain
positive affective qualities – concern (for the community, employees, and the environment) and
an authentic image. Unsustainable brands were widely associated with negative affective
qualities – namely disregard (for the community, employees, and the environment) and a
constructed image, which participants did not consider trustworthy.

When participants were asked to sort a series of corporate behaviors associated with
sustainability into a hierarchy according to which behaviors the participants believed were most
important, the resulting hierarchies reflected a real concern for ethical business generally, but
less dedication to spending capital to ensure that ethical business is practiced. Indeed,
participants consistently sorted sustainable business behaviors that require companies to adhere
to regulations or expend capital toward the bottom of their hierarchies. This is “concern for
capital,” or the idea that although a person may feel positively about purchasing sustainable
products and enjoy the concept of sustainable business, they are simultaneously worried that
operating a sustainable business is antithetical to accumulating capital and thus an inappropriate
strategy to prefer. I consider concern for capital an additional barrier to purchasing sustainable
products along with barriers identified by participants: (1) high price, (2) lack of information,
and (3) lack of availability.
If the opinion of my study participants is any indicator, it seems that one of the reasons
we see a significant attitude-behavior discrepancy when it comes to American consumption of
sustainable goods is because Americans don’t always think sustainability makes good business
sense. They are concerned for capital, and see sustainability as at least somewhat antithetical to
it. To temper this concern for capital I recommended two global policies that could serve to tip
the scales in favor of sustainable production: establishing a pigouvian tax on carbon and a large
scale attempt to reproduce the California Effect by raising sustainability standards in developed
countries while conditioning market access on adhering to those standards. These are undeniably
difficult policies to implement, especially on a global level. Nonetheless, they bear mentioning.
My more reasonable recommendations deal with breaking down the three barriers (1)
high price, (2) lack of information, and (3) lack of availability, which may serve to temper the
attitudes of consumers toward purchasing sustainable products, and diminish the persistence of
(4) concern for capital. These recommendations are designed to encourage growth in the market
for sustainable products through consumer demand.
Future Directions for Research
Further research is needed to fully understand sustainability as a concept, how consumers
interact with sustainable goods and what is likely to convince or dissuade them from purchasing
these goods.
Beyond Early Adopters
To evaluate whether sustainable business practices and purchasing sustainable goods are
of concern to groups that do not fit the ‘early adopter’ description it would be interesting to
employ this survey methodology to other groups. I recommend exploring the viewpoints of
relatively economically disadvantaged populations, elderly populations, and relatively
uneducated populations. Applying this survey design to other groups may require some
adjustment of the brands used as primers so that the particular group is able to recognize the
brand and make judgments about it. In this case it may be helpful for the researcher to be
familiar with the population, at least through empirical study and/or observational research.
Small Companies & Sustainable Business
Participants consistently noted that small companies have a heightened capacity to
operate their business sustainably. Small businesses, however, are often legally exempt from
reporting information about their operations. This isn’t bad thing, by any means. Indeed,
transparency can be a very onerous apparatus, and it may not be appropriate for every “mom and
pop shop” to spend the time and money it would take to document their business practices. To
evaluate whether small businesses deserve to be associated with sustainability I recommend a

survey of small businesses in an effort to understand just how sustainable they are. The survey
could be administered to small business owners and would ask them to take account of their
sustainable business practices, which could be modeled on the eleven sustainable business
practices I used in this project (p.16).
Situational Primers and Sustainable Consumption
Social science research has continually showed the effects of priming on attitudes and
actions. In one study, participants were primed with words related to elderly stereotypes were
likely to walk more slowly down the hallway after finishing the experiment than the control
group (Bargh, Chen, & Burrows, 1996). It would be interesting to evaluate whether situational
primers might make a consumer more likely to purchase a sustainable product.
The study might take place in a grocery store with a pair (or several pairs) of brands, to
be displayed next to one another. One of the two products should be marked in some way that
distinguishes it as sustainable. Before entering the store to do their shopping, consumers would
be primed to think about values related to sustainability; for instance, they may witness a small
group of people planting a tree or see some information the reminds them of social instability
like a poster about child laborers. Would these positive primers actually affect real life
purchasing decisions? Additionally, prices between the sustainable and unsustainable brand
could be altered to be either more egalitarian or more differentiated as a method of determining
at what cost people would choose the sustainable good in a primed vs. unprimed condition.
Limitations
As with all research, the data collected for this study is subject to some limitations. First,
the online survey relied on self-reported preferences. This is especially significant in research
related to sustainable goods. Indeed, respondents may be prone to ‘social desirability bias.’ This
is a bias where respondents tend to reply to surveys in a manner that may be viewed favorably by
others. This will generally take the form of over reporting "good" behavior or under reporting
"bad" behavior. Self-reported behavior, however, was not an important part of the semi-
structured interview protocol, so this bias should have relatively little effect on the study’s final
conclusion.
The online survey and therefore the interview protocol were only administered to
Northwestern undergraduate students. These individuals are demonstrably different than the
general population in that they are younger, more highly educated and have higher socio-
economic statues than the general population. These differences could affect the generalizability
of the data. Young, educated, relatively wealthy individuals, however, are a choice population
for studying attitudes toward sustainability and thus appropriate subjects for this research. I
classify them as potential “early adopters” of sustainable goods.
Finally, encouraging this method of altering the marketplace toward sustainable concerns
is flawed because it is consumption oriented. Encouraging individuals to buy sustainable
products does not really discourage conspicuous consumption, but merely signals to a consumer
that a certain product is “more sustainable” than others on the market. As a result, consumers
might see these sustainable products as a permissible (and even helpful) way to consume at will.
One could certainly argue, however, that high levels of consumption themselves are a significant
cause of environmental depletion and socially negligent policies like using child labor or
requiring overtime work without overtime pay and should not be used as a method to combat
these negative effects.

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Appendix A
Shell Advertisement
In 2007 Shell released this advertisement, which depicts oil refinery chimneys spewing out
flowers. Environmental groups charged that this marketing campaign misrepresented the
environmental impact of Shell’s activities. Although the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA)
did not define the image itself as misleading because it was “conceptual and fanciful,” the ASA
did rule against Shell on the factual information presented here. The ASA asserted that the
wording of the advertisement implied that a significant amount of the company’s emissions were
recycled, perhaps to grow flowers, which is absolutely misleading (Tryhorn 2007).

Appendix B
Online Survey Protocol
Online Sustainability Survey
During this survey, you will be asked a series of multiple choice and open response questions
about sustainability. Please be thoughtful and answer the questions to the best of your ability.
Definitions:
Environmentally friendly (green): Something that inflicts little to no harm on the environment.
Sustainability: The potential for long-term maintenance of Earth’s ecosystem, which depends on
making trade offs between the economic, social, and environmental spheres to meet the needs of
the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
1. Please describe your personal commitment to sustainability.
2. Are there any brands you buy specifically because they are sustainable? Please list them
below.
3. Are there any brands you buy even though they are not sustainable? Please list them below.
4. There are many environmentally friendly products on the market. For each product below,
please indicate how important it is to you, when making a purchase, that the product be
environmentally friendly.
Essential Important Not so Not important Don’t buy

(4) (3) important at all (0)
(2) (1)
Computer
printer paper
Clothes
detergent
Automobile
Wood furniture
5. For each of the following products, please indicate which one of the following is most
important to you when you buy it – the price, quality, or environmental friendliness.
Environmental Quality Price Don’t buy

friendliness (2) (2) (0)
(4)
Computer printer
paper
Clothes detergent
Automobile
Wood furniture
6. Would you pay 15% more for an environmentally friendly version of the product?
Definitely Probably Probably not Definitely not Don’t buy

(4) (3) (2) (1) (0)
Computer
printer paper
Clothes
detergent
Automobile
Wood furniture
7. In order to let consumers know that their product is “environmentally friendly,” manufacturers
may use a seal of approval or eco-label on their packaging. Please indicate how knowledgeable
you are about the following eco-labels.
Very Somewhat Have heard of Never heard of

knowledgeable knowledgeable but are (1)
(4) (3) unfamiliar with
(2)
8. Please evaluate how important it is that companies practice the embrace the following
sustainable practices.
Essential Important Not so important Not important at

(4) (3) (2) all
(1)
Employees may
organize and
bargain
collectively
Company is
actively working
to reduce energy
and resource
consumption
Company is
working to
reduce the
amount of waste
it creates
Companies
employ
independent
monitors to
oversee overseas
production
Company
practices
environmental
stewardship even
if the country it
operates in lacks
environmental
regulations
Employees have
freedom from
forced labor
Company is
engaged with the
community and
supportive of it
Company
employs metrics
to measure and
manage energy
consumption
Employees earn
a living wage
Employer
sponsors job-
related education
programs for
employees
Company
routinely
collaborates with
non-profit groups
9. Demographic Info:
Age:
Gender:
Year in school:
A: Freshman
B: Sophomore
C: Junior
D: Senior
10. Would you be willing to participate in a one-hour interview to answer more questions on this
topic? You will be paid $30 for your participation. If you are willing to participate, please enter
your email address below. If you are selected to participate in the interview, you will be
contacted by email to schedule an interview time.
Appendix C
Semi-Structured Interview Protocol
Semi-Structured Sustainability Interview
Instructions: This interview will consist of three separate tasks, which will require you to sort a
series of index cards into groups. There are two types of index cards you will interact with:
branded cards and behavior cards. The branded cards contain the logo of 10 brands respectively.
During step three, up to four of these cards may be brands you reported knowledge of during
your online survey. The behavior cards contain sustainable business practices, which are the
same corporate behaviors the respondent was asked to rank during the online survey.
Task 1: Please sort these branded cards according to how sustainable you
believe them to be. Create three groups: sustainable brands, unsustainable Adidas
brands, and brands of unknown sustainability. You may have as many or as
few cards in each group as you wish, but you must sort all the cards into one of
the piles. American Apparel
Ben & Jerry’s
Questions about Task 1: Chipotle
• Will you please say a few sentences about why you sorted each of these Chiquita
branded cards as you did? Haagen Dazs
• What made you select [insert brand] for the sustainable brand group? Kettle Chips
• What made you select [insert brand] for the unsustainable brand group? Sun Chips
• You said you were unfamiliar with the sustainability practices of [insert Timberland
brand] do you know anything about this brand? Have you ever purchased it?Urban Outfitters
• I may also ask other questions that attempt to get at why a respondent sorted the brands
he did.
Task 2: Please sort these behavior cards according to how important it is to you that a company
engages in each of these activities. Behaviors may tie for a position on the scale. If one or more
of these behaviors is not important at all to you, please do not include the card in your ranking
system.
Questions about Task 2:

• Will you please say a few sentences about why you sorted these behaviors cards the way
you did?
• Why did you select [insert behavior(s)] as the most important one(s) for a company to
engage in?
• Why did you select [insert behavior(s)] as the least important activity or activities for a
company to engage in?
• Are there sustainable business practices in addition to the ones I have laid out that are
especially important to you? Why?
• I may also ask other questions that attempt to get at why a respondent sorted these
behaviors as he did.
Task 3: Please use the groups of branded cards and your hierarchy of behavior cards to answer
the following questions.
Questions about Task 3:

• Do you associate any of these brands with the corporate behaviors you identified as
important?
• What do you know about the company that produces [insert brand]?
• Do you associate any of these brands with corporate behaviors that conflict with the ones
you identified as important?
• What do you know about the company that produces [insert brand]?
• I may also ask other questions that attempt to understand why a particular brand/company
is associated with being sustainable (or unsustainable) in the participant’s mind.
Appendix D
Bibliography Regarding Brand Pairs
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American Apparel. (2009). LegalizeLA. Retrieved 20 August 2009, from
http://americanapparel.net/contact/legalizela/.
American Apparel. (2009). Our workers. Retrieved 20 August 2009, from
http://www.americanapparel.net/contact/ourworkers.html.
American Apparel. (2009). Vertical integration. Retrieved 25 August 2009, from
http://americanapparel.net/contact/vertical.html.
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Association of American Publishers. (14 February 2007). Coal can’t be clean [Electronic
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On The Nature of Sustainable Product Choices: A Qualitative Study Examining College Students' Attitudes Toward Sustainable Brands

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On the nature of sustainable product choices 1

Running Head: SUSTAINABILITY, COLLEGE STUDENTS, CONSUMPTION BEHAVIOR,

On the nature of sustainable product choices:

James Rosenbaum, PhD

John Laing, PhD

A special thanks to:

John Laing, PhD. for being my most trusted advisor.

And let’s not forget that little thing, inspiration.

The Difficult Diaper Decision .........................................................38

operating a sustainable business is antithetical to accumulating capital. I offer policy

the market for sustainable products through consumer demand.

Research Objectives & Review of Literature

Commission on Environment and Development developed by the United Nations. It defines

sustainability as “a process of change in which the exploitation of resources, the direction of

operating in a sustainable manner.

Finality of Social Sustainability

American Over Consumption

Michigan Center for Sustainable Systems, 2009)

Positive Attitudes Toward Sustainable Goods

of U. S. citizens consider themselves to be "environmentalists.” According to the Green Gauge

"sometimes" influenced by environmental messages in advertising and on product labels (Chase

and Smith, 1992).

The rise of green consumerism lead to a broadened concept of consumption referred to as

garments made without sweatshop labor (O’Rourke, 2005).

The Attitude-Behavior Gap

Although Americans may consider themselves environmentalists Hal Rothman (1998),

Increased Marketing of Sustainable Products

implied, for 66 percent of the 397 brands they audited.

trivial, confusing, misleading, or downright illegal. This is “greenwashing,” a process whereby a

environment, I contend that a product should be considered greenwashed when it unjustly

promotes a company’s social impacts as well.

Many corporations have attempted to market sustainable products by misrepresenting or

commitment to sustainability and investments in alternative energy (Appendix A). The

regardless of their truth.

The Research Question

chosen to conduct a qualitative study to explore consumers’ attitudes toward sustainable

Northwestern undergraduates) use when asked to differentiate between sustainable and

purchase of sustainable products get their message out more successfully.

Study Participants: The Early Adopters

students are wealthier, more educated, and younger.

development (Oxfam, 2009).

younger person simply has a more vested interest.

respondents to participate in an interview and was designed to elucidate a rough understanding of

to identify any online survey participants.

Scoring the Online Survey

participate in semi-structured interviews. These interviews were intended to explore an

‘important’ during Exercise 2 (Exercise 3).

method to evaluating the sustainability potential of various companies4.

companies I chose for my pairings could reasonably be distinguished by their commitment to

Based on my research (Appendix C) I would categorize the brands I selected as paired

according to product similarity, but divergent regarding sustainability:

Unsustainable vs. Sustainable

Adidas vs. Timberland

Furthermore, since my sample consists of Northwestern undergraduate students, I wanted to

how they perceive the sustainability potential of brands in general.

not include the card in your ranking system.

1. Employees may organize and bargain collectively

particularly on behaviors that tend to be associated with sustainable businesses.

brands with the corporate behaviors you identified as important?

Data Logistics & Participant Compensation

anonymous since I have the ability to trace responses to subject identities.

The interviews were transcribed using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, a crowdsourcing

were transcribed, I checked each one of them for accuracy.