A Fair Chance to Know It’s Fair : A study of online communication within the field of Fair Trade consumption

The rise of ethical consumerism has contributed to that organisations increasingly include CSR policies in their business and marketing strategies. Consumers want to make more ethically based purchasing decisions, and are guided by organisations’ ethical claims and by product labels. However, there are many different ethical organisations and labels on the market today and consumers find it difficult to separate them and know what each of them stands for. Ethical consumerism stems from green consumerism and has contributed to the development and rise of the Fair Trade movement. The general idea of Fair Trade is to support producers in poor countries, and by purchasing Fair Trade products consumers can contribute to realising the Fair Trade objectives. Previous research has identified a gap between consumers’ attitudes and actual behaviour regarding Fair Trade consumption. Consumers clearly express a positive attitude towards the Fair Trade movement and Fair Trade products, but their attitudes are not reflected in actual purchases. Researchers suggest that the gap could depend on lack of information and proof that Fair Trade actually contribute to better working and living conditions of producers in poor countries, but this had not yet been investigated. Our main purpose with this degree project is to identify factors that could affect the attitude-behaviour gap, and more precisely how access to information affects the existing gap. Our conclusions and recommendations are providing valuable insights for Fair Trade and other ethical organisations and businesses that are part of ethical value chains.