By Estelle Pin, Boost! Collective’s Millennial-in-chief
This is the first in a two-part series about the increasing trend of ethical consumerism in millennials. Part two will explore storytelling in ethical consumerism and who’s doing it well.
Think about your 20s.
Whether you’re experiencing them right now, or remembering days behind you, some things are universally true. For instance: chances are, you thought of positive things when prompted to think about this time in your life. You also probably thought of self-defining moments. That could be the moment you got your first real job, or that really fantastic date you’ll never forget. Or it could be the single strange moment when you tried something new and you decided this was now going to be something you did.
That’s the thing about identify formation. It’s sort of a trick question. “Who are you?” Um, a cellist, a writer, a skier, a runner? “No, no, that’s what you do—but who ARE you?” I’m … a French immigrant. “No, not where you’re from—WHO ARE YOU?”
When the date who thinks they’re tricky asks this, the answer will be: What I do is who I am. As is what I think. And what I like. And where I shop. All of these things are who I am. Because identify formation happens when we make decisions, and when we see our values or traits reflected in our actions.
Making the “right” decisions
Shopping according to your values and making consumer decisions based off ethical concerns is a quantifiably shared trait in today’s millennial generation. And the fact that this generation is undergoing so much identity formation now, is part of why ethical consumerism exists and is so popular among a generation still in its formative years.
Ethical consumerism is “the practice of purchasing products and services produced in a way that minimizes social and/or environmental damage, while avoiding products and services deemed to have a negative impact on society or the environment.” It’s generally much more expensive than price shopping, because of the increased standards for production, or because you’re paying for higher wages, or because your money also goes to donating a pair of those shoes for someone in need.
So, is that something you do?
Nowadays, for people born roughly between 1980 and 2000, the answer is more often yes than for any previous generation. In their article “Examining Overconsumption, Competitive Consumption, and Conscious Consumption from 1994 to 2004”, Carr, Gotleib, Lee and Shah posit that members of Generation X over-consume, at the lowest cost, and with the lowest rates of ethical consumption, instead opting to shop for status signifiers; traits which shaped the direction of our economy and global leading into the 2000s.
Millennials, both exuberant to be coming of an age where their actions form change in the world, and reactionary to the generation that preceded them, are hoping to reverse these trends. In a 2014 Forbes report, 40 to 60 percent of millennials (depending on location) responded that they would pay more for socially conscious or eco-friendly brands.
Why pay the price?
It could be that part of this trend is due to increasing stress over the state of our world and society. Global warming is finally too obvious to reasonably refute. Global productivity per capita has been growing for decades—while personal income and wages have not been increasing to match. Human rights violations are frequent news, refugee numbers are at a high all across the world, and sexual assault happens to one in every four women you know. So of course, a company which touts positive environmental impact, or fair wages, or charitable donations to people in need, will speak to people who want to make a difference with their purchases.
The other reason ethical companies are attracting so many loyal millennial consumers willing to pay more for their products is simply, that’s what we do. Because it’s a part of who we are—or who we think we are. In a survey by Boston Consulting Group, half of millennials surveyed said that the brands that they shop and the choices they make say something about who they are as people.
A trend with no sign of stopping
While the kind of identity formation that happens in a person’s twenties seems conveniently timed with these pressing global issues, the trend of ethical consumerism isn’t just going to stop when millennials hit their 40s.
Think about the peanut butter you bought in your 20s. The dish soap? The toothpaste? Are they the same brands you buy now? Again, the likelihood that you said yes is disproportionate. And according to Jon F. Sherry’s “Contemporary Marketing and Consumer Behavior”, it’s even more likely that your kids will buy the same brand, simply because you do. Which means, if you are shopping ethically now, your children will probably continue your ethical consumer habits, even if they don’t know that’s why they do it.
This means for companies getting on board with ethical and environmentally-friendly production, the consumer returns aren’t just a passing trend. Furthermore, these companies reap the benefits of the better world they contribute to.
Tune in next time for more on whose doing this well, and how we can learn from them…
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