New polls frequently announce that a significant proportion of the population is concerned about an issue or willing to sacrifice for a cause, from environmental sustainability to third world debt. However, standard polls don’t accurately measure people’s true beliefs.

Over the last decade we have seen increased interest in the societal role of corporations.  A cursory Google time line indicates that up until around 1998 mentions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) was relatively constant and fairly low but since […]

Timothy Devinney, author of the recent book The Myth of the Ethical Consumer, spoke with Justmeans about the danger of assuming that consumers care about sustainability.  Devinney notes “The way in which people conceptualize social consumption is fundamentally wrong…. If […]

Despite differences of opinion about the efficacy of corporate social responsibility, there is a general consensus among academics, policy makers, and practitioners that corporations operate with a social sanction that requires that they operate within the norms and mores of […]

Katy Perry, singer of ‘I kissed a girl’, declares herself a ‘Red artist’. Georgio Armani, American Express, Starbucks, Apple, Dell – all these companies consider themselves to be ‘Red’, as do Converse, Bugaboo and Hallmark. They have pledged themselves to […]