The Sustainability Liability: Potential Negative Effects of Ethicality on Product Preference

Abstract

Manufacturers are increasingly producing and promoting sustainable products (i.e., products that have a positive social and/or environmental impact). However, relatively little is known about how product sustainability affects consumers' preferences. The authors propose that sustainability may not always be an asset, even if most consumers care about social and environmental issues. The degree to which sustainability enhances preference depends on the type of benefit consumers most value for the product category in question. In this research, the authors demonstrate that consumers associate higher product ethicality with gentleness-related attributes and lower product ethicality with strength-related attributes. As a consequence of these associations, the positive effect of product sustainability on consumer preferences is reduced when strength-related attributes are valued, sometimes even resulting in preferences for less sustainable product alternatives (i.e., the "sustainability liability"). Conversely, when gentleness-related attributes are valued, sustainability enhances preference. In addition, the authors show that the potential negative impact of sustainability on product preferences can be attenuated using explicit cues about product strength.

The impact of corporate social responsibility on customer attitudes and retention—the moderating role of brand success indicators

“…For instance, CSR initiatives may negatively affect evaluations of luxury brands (Torelli et al 2012) or of products in certain product categories (e.g., Luchs et al 2010). Literature also cautions that the effectiveness of CSR critically depends on company characteristics and strategy.…”

Corporate Social Responsibility in Buyer-Supplier Relationships: Is it Beneficial for Top-Tier Suppliers to Market their Capability to Ensure a Responsible Supply Chain?

“…Which marketing practices would they apply, given that top-tier suppliers act in a B2B context, and how would these CSR-related marketing practices differ from CSRrelated marketing in a business-to-consumer context? To date, marketing literature is still vague in answering these questions, as a significant portion of CSR-related marketing literature refers to consumer marketing rather than to B2B, business, or industrial marketing (e.g., Carrington, Neville, and Whitwell 2010;Luchs, Naylor, Irwin, and Raghunathan 2010). In a B2B context, authors such as Mudambi (2002) or Balmer and Greyser (2006) argued that firms in business markets usually encounter professional buyers that emphasize tangible attributes such as a supplier's financial strength, technical expertise, and production processes, rather than intangible attributes such as image, brand identification, or emotional satisfaction.…”

Embending Sustainability Dynamics in the Lean Construction Supply Chain Management

“…These barriers might include: suppliers' lack of technical know-how to comply with sustainability requirements [8]; suppliers' lack the financial means to invest in green initiatives [8]; enforcing unreasonable contracts on small suppliers obstacling their stay in business [8] (p. 139); risks arising due to the implementation of sustainable procurement [64], [33] (p. 207); conflicts among companies in the same SC upon launching new sustainability-oriented activities [7] (p. 549); the consumers' unwillingness/reluctance-to-pay for sustainability efforts [65], [66], [62] (p. 74); high initial buyer and supplier investment costs associated with adapting SSM [34] (p. 267); cost issues and economic uncertainty." [34] (p. 267); rising transaction costs due to embedding environmental standards in the purchasing criteria [46], [44] and the difficulty in developing and managing environmental specifications [44], [46]; suppliers' reluctance in environmental upgrading due to fuziness in the sufficient business rationale for investing in environmental upgrading."…”