Chinese consumer cynicism about corporate sustainability claims

Chinese consumers are becoming just as cynical as Western consumers about corporate green- and whitewashing (insincere environmental and social claims communicated by companies), according to the GlobeScan’s annual global tracking research.

The study, which interviewed over 30,000 people across 34 countries, finds that "while in 2005 more than 80% of Chinese consumers felt that companies communicated ‘honestly and truthfully’ about their social and environmental performance, this has now fallen sharply, with only 40 per cent feeling this way in this year’s study".

An increasing number of consumers are reading company sustainability pages. However, an even larger number of consumers (30%) look beyond company websites, to other online sources for information about a company's sustainability performance.

GlobScan also finds that the top-scoring green consumers of 2010 are in the developing economies of India, Brazil, China, and then Mexico.



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