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WHO ARE THE CONSUMERS FOR SUSTAINABLE LUXURY?
Overview Researchers have tried to identify the compability of sustainability and luxury fashion(Kapferer and Denizeau, 2014; Henings, Wiedmann, Klarmann and Behrens, 2013; Achabou and Dekhili, 2013; Joy, Sherry, Venkatesh, Wang and Chan, 2012). These studies have suggested that sustainability does not hold much relevance for luxury brands from the perspective of consumers who expect luxury brand offerings to be made from high quality products even if they come at a cost to the environment or the society in general. Davies, Lee and Ahonkhai (2012) investigated the importance of ethical consumption in luxury brand consumers, they observed that even though a consumer may have high ethical inclination while purchasing a commodity product but when buying luxury, they expect the highest quality and brand experience even if it comes a cost to the sustainability concerns. Achabou and Dekhili (2013) studied the consumer acceptance towards the usage of recycled materials in luxury fashion clothing and observed that despite the increasing environment conservation concern in society, consumers expect the brand to be of the highest quality standards and not recycled. Kapferer and Denizeau (2014) also observed that luxury buyers believe that there is no synchony between luxury and sustainability especially in the context of social and economic harmony aspect of sustainable development. Despite the consumer insentivity towards sustainability when it comes to luxury, brands like Stella McCartney and its parent company, the Kering group are increasingly emphasizing on being sustainable. Every year Kering’s brands, which also include Gucci, Alexander McQueen, Saint Laurent and, are measuring greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution, water pollution, water consumption, waste, and changes in ecosystem services associated with land use. It puts numbers against each of those areas in order to see the impact of its supply chain on the planet in monetary terms (Arthur, 2016). Now the question arises that when consumers are not much bothered by sustainability standards in luxury industry in general,as suggested by academic researches, then why are the luxury fashion brands emphasizing on being sustainable and marketing this idea in their advertisemnts and brand campaigns. The increasing inclination of luxury fashion brands for being considered as sustainable suggests that there is a strong consumer base for sustainable luxury as well which has not been studied so far. Although Janssen, Vanhamme and Leblanc (2016) have emphasized the need to understand customer evaluations of responsible luxury brand image and its impact on the customer attitudes towards luxury brands, they did not study the consumer characteristics which can influence the responsible luxury brand evaluations. This study attempts to identify the consumers for sustainabile luxury and profile them on the basis of their personality traits and demographics. This will be particularly helpful for luxury brands in understanding their customers better and accordingly align their marketing efforts with the expectations and personalities of their target consumers.
