The role of company's sustainable procurement practices in conscious consumer buying behaviour. Case: Ekotin Oy

Abstract

Today’s consumers are an active and strong influence affecting businesses’ market decisions. Conscious consumerism has been a significant force behind various corporate sustainability efforts during past decades. As a matter of fact, integrating sustainability in business strategy and core activities can be claimed to be a growing trend in many fields. Sustainable procurement forms an important part of the attempt to promote environmental and social objectives in business.

The objective of this thesis is to study the role a company’s sustainable procurement practices have in conscious consumer buying behaviour by studying the consumers of the case company. This thesis also investigates how the consumers perceive the different aspects of sustainable purchasing and how aware and well informed they are about them.

The thesis was written between August 2013 and May 2014. The empirical part was composed by conducting primary and secondary research. Exploratory literature review was carried out by utilizing multiple sources such as articles, books and web pages. The approach of primary research was quantitative, and the research method was a customer survey.

This thesis provides an overview to sustainable procurement and conscious consumerism. Furthermore, based on the findings of exploratory research and the results of the customer survey, recommendations are given to the case company about how to organize their procurement in order to meet the customer preferences and demands.