ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on studies which characterise early research into ethical consumption which people classify under the heading of ‘segmentation perspectives’. It examines two subsets of studies: in the first subset, researchers have attempted to apply traditional marketing segmentation techniques to ethical consumption; that is, those which attempt to discover who ethical consumers are. Early studies in particular, recognising increasing consumer demands for social responsibility, framed the issue largely as a market segmentation issue. The second subset includes studies which attempt to understand the ethical motivations of consumer groups. As Straughan and Roberts observed, age has been the subject of a range of studies since the early identification of green marketing. Hawkins investigated the relationship between gender and Cause-Related Marketing, arguing that ethical consumption is by its very nature a gendered act, since at the time of her publication most household purchases were made by women.
