The attitudes of consumers towards Sustainable Development in South Africa

Abstract

Businesses and governments in developed markets are currently facing immense pressure from consumers and the general public to operate in a manner that ensures the sustainability of the markets‘ natural and social forms of capital is not compromised through the pursuit of economic growth. Sustainable development is thus high on the agendas of most businesses competing for profits in these markets. The research discussed in this report explored consumer attitudes, product choice and consumption behaviours regarding sustainable development and sustainably produced products. It also measured consumer expectations of corporate sustainable development initiatives. The aim was to build on business and marketers‘ understanding regarding the degree to which sustainable development is becoming an important consumer concern in South Africa. Data was gathered from a total of 324 respondents who self-completed an online survey. Exploratory factor, k-means cluster and correspondence analyses were conducted on the data to address the research problems identified by the researcher. The research indicated that sustainable development is becoming a topic of relatively high concern for consumers in South Africa and that consumers do consider a wide range of sustainable development issues when purchasing and consuming products. Businesses in South Africa thus cannot afford to ignore the sustainable development movement as both a key business and consumer concern. In order to benefit from consumer support as a result of sustainable development initiatives, a business needs to ensure that the initiatives are relevant to the context of their own industries and aligned with the issues viewed to be important by their target consumers.