Center for Fair & Alternative Trade

“An Exploration of the Beliefs of Ethical Consumers towards Wool Apparel Consumption”

Presented by Jo Sneddon, Assistant Professor, University of Western Australia

Jo Sneddon, Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Business School of the University of Western Australia and Visiting Scholar to CSU, presented “An Exploration of the Beliefs of Ethical Consumers towards Wool Apparel Consumption.”

Dr. Sneddon is an experienced researcher of the wool industry. Her current research aims to obtain deep and rich insights about ethical consumers’ beliefs toward wool apparel purchasing and the formation of those beliefs.

At the CFAT seminar, she presented the preliminary results from a series of focus groups that she had organized in order to investigate the following research questions: (1) What are ethical consumers’ salient and normative beliefs about the purchase of wool apparel? (2) How are the ethical consumers’ salient and normative beliefs about the purchase of wool apparel formed?

Dr. Sneddon’s research suggests that the ethical consumer segment may provide a new market opportunity for the development of wool apparel with positive social, environmental and ethical impacts. She discussed the focus group participants’ responses to wool products labelled so as to promote their compliance with animal welfare, organic, fair trade, and no-sweat labor certification schemes. She concluded that the lack of a standardized label for ethical wool caused confusion for the focus group participants in regards to the authenticity of the certification programs.

Dr. Sneddon’s research will be of particular interest to those studying ethical consumer values and interests as well as corporate social responsibility and ethical production certification schemes.