Why Ethical Products Are More Common in Some Countries than in Others

mock exam essay

It seems that every day we see things coined as “organic products” from newspaper, TV and magazines. However, we never really show interests in purchasing them after we see the price labels. Whoops! It is costly. According to Tan (2007), in some countries such as Australia and Britain, people spend more on ethical goods than other products. The question arises: why are ethical products more common in some countries than in others? To answer the question, we need to consider four factors which influence people’s preference of goods. They are consumers’ budget, which determines the amount of money consumers are willing to spend; consumers’ rationales, which implies what they want from purchasing a good; educational level, which will raise their eco-awareness; and government policy, which will determine the amount and variety of ethical products within a country’s market.

The most important factor, budget for consumption, affects people’s purchasing power significantly. According to Tan (2007), in some countries, ethical products have already reached the mass in their markets. We can see from that, these countries, such as Britain and Australia, are developed countries with high GDP and GNP. Thus, they can spend more on healthy products than people in developing countries since they won’t result in insufficient budget for other consumptions. The monetary factor leads to a small amount of ethical products consumption simply because of people should consider more of balancing their budget for living, especially in developing countries.

Secondly, from psychological aspect, majority of consumers are rational. That is to say, they put more consideration on what they can get from certain goods rather than what is the cost for environment. For example, people concern more about whether the cosmetic products are organic and healthy to their skin compared to whether the plastic bags they hold will cause pollution when purchasing skin-care products. To some extent, consumers care more about how a product will affect them directly without seeing further cost for the environment.

However, some portion of consumers who show less interests for ethical products are not simply for the reason of being rational. It might due to their educational levels which will determine their recognition of the importance of showing consideration for environment and future consumption. Education is important for every one in order to raise the public awareness of environmental issues. For instance, people will not know why air-transported products will potentially increase global warming to a certain level if they know little about global warming. People might be rich with sufficient purchasing power. However, insufficient knowledge can still lead to low consumption of eco-friendly goods since their lack of eco-awareness.

The last factor is government policy which plays a role of guide of consumption. The influence and power of government can affect public purchasing of ethical products to a certain level. For a government, especially a government of developing country, which ranks economic growth first, it might tend to ignore the environment to achieve its goals. The government might not encourage organic product industry as developed countries’ governments do. Therefore, the domestic market might lack variety and amount of ethical products. People will naturally consume non-ethical because of insufficient choices and high prices of environmental-friendly goods.

In conclusion, budge for consumption, consumers’ rationale, educational level and government policy are four factors which influence people’s purchasing of ethical good crucially and importantly. We hope to see the improvements in some countries in educating people to raise the public awareness of ethical products purchasing accompany with the increase in GDP and GNP. We hope a better world and better lives in the future.