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Are Retailers And Consumers In Sync On Social Responsibility?

In the middle of a global pandemic, one would think that sustainability and environmental and social responsibility would take a back seat and fall off the front pages of the news.

It turns out just the opposite occurred. The impact of climate change brought once-in-a-lifetime wildfires in California and Australia, a massive number of tropical storms in the Atlantic, recognition of the oceanic problems caused by single-use plastics caused many governments to ban them, and inhumane practices in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region led to calls for a boycott.

Of course, retail store and distribution center employees achieved “front-line worker” status and consumers took note of who rewarded those workers and who did not.

While some believe that concerns about sustainability and sourcing are limited to those with enough money to care, others believe that environmental concerns are here to stay and represent yet another hallmark of the generational shift we have been talking about for several years.

The purpose of this research is to find out if retailers and consumers are in sync on this issue. Is it simply a “luxury” that the wealthy care about, or is it reaching into the very core of consumer consciousness?  And, do retailers get it?