Consolidation of the common good and a personal quest for virtue? Sketching out the Finnish ethical consumer

Ethical consumption is a topic increasingly discussed by academics, marketers, the media, producers and consumers alike. This paper develops an understanding of contemporary ethical consumption in Finland. This involves figuring out what ethical consumption is, how the ethical consumer is constructed, and who ethical consumers are in terms of socio-demographics. A multi-method approach is undertaken to answer these questions. This paper disentangles three frames through which interest in ethical consumption tends to be approached in academia – the ethical consumer as a myth, the ethical consumer as a consumer-citizen and the ethical consumer as self-interested being, and attempts to render these tangible for empirical use, as well as put them up for empirical scrutiny. Content analysis of qualitative online data from Finland’s largest forum Suomi24, as well as analysis of quantitative data from the Finland 2014 survey are intertwined in order to provide a critical and multidimensional picture of the ethical consumer. Narrowing down the definition of ethical consumption to include but positive ethical consumption, thus excluding boycotts and other types of consumer activism, it is noted that ethical and environmental consumer discourse is centered around the consumption of food, and meat in particular. Other economically and ecologically significant areas of consumption such as transport, energy and housing are disproportionally rarely discussed using ethical and ecological terminology considering their economic and ecological impact. Commentators on Suomi24 do for the most part embrace the idea of ethical consumption, however such consumption is constructed as a highly individual practice. Some face barriers to engaging in such consumption, and have to reconcile this ideal with their economic and cultural realities. Data from the Finland 2014 survey confirms that there are indeed sociodemographic differences between those who embrace ethical consumer attitudes and those who do not.siirretty Doriast