Responsible Investor

This is part of a wider social trend in which ethical consumption and responsible behaviour has moved from a minority concern into the mainstream. In doing so, it is appealing to a greater diversity of people. Pensions professionals may well wish to consider the emerging body of research on sustainable consumption. An increasingly effective social marketing research community is advising companies and government on how to encourage all consumers to change their behaviour to address climate change, biodiversity loss and the other impacts of the current western lifestyle. The recognition of climate change has clearly been a wake-up call for many people. But the evidence is building that there is more to it than that. A couple of years ago, Campaign Strategy newsletter – one of the more thoughtful and inspiring publications commenting on this trend – flagged up that the Henley Centre had identified that desire for material things was being replaced by a desire for belonging, community and experiences. With over 60% of the UK public in 2004 agreeing with the statement ’I have got all the material things I need’, this clearly went beyond the traditional ethically concerned and inner directed – the marketing segment often known as ‘pioneers’. More recently, Campaign Strategy has quoted evidence from Cultural Dynamics Strategy and Marketing (CDSM) to highlight that we may have reached a tipping point in green and ethical behaviour. Tracking change in the UK population since the 1970s, CDSM has found a steady increase in personal growth/ethical ‘pioneers’ and shrinkage in the security-minded ‘settlers’ segment – so that pioneers

have recently become the majority group at over 40%, compared with around 20% settlers and just under 40% in the third and final segment – the outer-directed esteem-driven ‘prospectors’.
Why does this create a tipping point? Because the outer-directed prospectors (who want, for example, to ‘keep up with the Jones’s’) are now looking to pioneers for their standards of behaviour to copy rather than to settlers – meaning that desire for security and physical symbols of success is being replaced instead by ethical behaviours becoming increasingly fashionable.But the twist is that these ethical behaviours are motivated by prospector values like ‘being fashionable’ not by inner-directed pioneer values. The challenge for both green and ethical investment marketing and pensions professionals is to shift their communications to respect and work with this.
National Ethical Investment Week is exploring how to learn from the success of initiatives like Fairtrade Fortnight. It is reaching out beyond the inner-directed pioneers to people who want to ‘do their bit’, ‘look good to the kids’ and ‘protect the world for their own future as well as for other people’.
NEIW’s core message is that choosing a green and ethical investment is another way of acting more responsibly – a positive choice that means your money not only works hard for you, but can also help society and the environment. It’s not too late to get involved. Posters can be downloaded from the National Ethical Investment Week web site or requested online for immediate dispatch.
Visit www.neiw.org to find out more.

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