Green Marketing & Ethical Consumerism : Shaping Consumer Behaviour

Sammanfattning: Marketers have found new ways of thinking leading to a development within the marketing area, the concept of green marketing has emerged and aims to improve communication in terms of ethically conscious products. Consumers are at times skeptical and companies need to be aware of the fact that trust is a main issue. However, along with the concept of green marketing, companies are sometimes misleading the consumers on their true intention, this phenomenon is called Greenwashing. This occurs when companies portray themselves to being greener than they actually are. The purpose of this thesis is to explore how consumer behavior is affected by green marketing and exploring whether or not knowledge has an effect. It will try to show the standpoint of the consumer and show what they strive for regarding ethical and green consumption. This research has been conducted through a deductive approach. The data collected are both gained from a qualitative and a quantitative method, however the analysis has been conducted in a qualitative way. Moreover the findings collected from this research have been retrieved from six semi-structured interviews as well as an online questionnaire.