Established the "Ethical Consumption Research Group" to conduct research, development and presentations on ethical consumption for consumers, focusing on food.

2021.04.06 Press Releases
CCCMK Holdings Co., Ltd.

-The first research presentation is "Survey on the Actual State of Ethics"-

CCC Marketing Inc. (Head office: Shibuya-ku, Tokyo; President and CEO: Kazuhiko Kitamura) has launched the Ethical Consumption Study Group, which will conduct research and development from various perspectives on ethical consumption among consumers, primarily in the area of food, and publish the results of that research. As its first project, the group will publish the results of a survey on the actual state of ethics.

The "Ethical Consumption Research Group" is a collaborative platform run by CCC Marketing called "T Card Everyone's Ethical Food Lab" ( https://ethicalfoodlab.tsite.jp ) and is a research group positioned within the T-Trade Forum. It is led by the Database Marketing Research Institute, a research institute that seeks to create value through R&D using T's unique data*1, and the CCC Marketing Research Institute, a research institute that weaves together the thoughts of 70 million people. It was established with the aim of researching ethical consumption by consumers, mainly in the area of food, while co-creating with a wide range of parties, including companies, educational institutions, and local governments.

The results of this research will be published to the public as they become available, and we will also collaborate with the "T Card Everyone's Ethical Food Lab" to continue engaging in dialogue with various stakeholders across industries, primarily consumers, based on the research findings.

The Ethical Consumption Study Group recently conducted an online survey of 3,000 men and women aged 16 to 69 to find out about their awareness, practices, issues of interest, shopping habits, and other topics related to ethics, ethical consumption, and ethical food.

The current state of "ethical" in Japan in 2021

First, let's look at how widespread the concept of "ethical" is as of February 2021. When asked about their awareness of "ethical," 5.5% said they "know what it means," and 16.3% said they "have heard of it but don't really understand what it means."

The combined recognition rate for both is 21.8%. The recognition rate of related words ("know the meaning" + "have heard of it but don't really understand it") was, in order of highest recognition rate, "ecology" 76.0%, "SDGs" 52.2%, "LOHAS" 51.8%, "sustainable" 50.6%, "fair trade" 46.8%, "ethical" 21.8%, "ESG" 17.8%, and "ethical consumption" 17.8%. It seems that "ethical" is not yet a widely used word.

Next, after explaining the concept, we asked people, including those who were unfamiliar with the term "ethical," whether they sympathized with "ethical consumption" on a 5-point scale. 8.7% of respondents said they "can sympathize" with ethical consumption, while 27.8% said they "somewhat sympathize," for a combined total of 36.6%. The most common answer was "I can't say either way," at 49.4%.

When asked whether they sympathize with the idea of "ethical food," 10.3% answered "I sympathize," and 31.4% answered "I somewhat sympathize," for a combined total of 41.7%. 46.7% of respondents answered "I can't say either way."The reason why many people answered "I can't say either way" is that it seems that many people are still not sure.

However, among these, more people sympathize with "ethical food" than with "ethical consumption," and it is thought that this is because it is a familiar theme and many people sympathize with it.

There are various ways to interpret "ethical"

After explaining the concept of "ethical," participants were presented with image words and asked to rate the degree to which each word applied to them on a 5-point scale. The most common answers of "applies" or "somewhat applies" were "serious" at 46.5%, "advanced" at 35.3%, "useful" at 34.2%, "reliable" at 32.6%, and "trustworthy" at 30.7%.

Based on these results, we classified respondents into five clusters based on their image of ethics. The characteristics of each are as follows:

About half of the people seem to still not have a clear intention or attitude. Furthermore, even among those who view Japan favorably, such as as being safe, trustworthy, and serious, there are those who see it as something progressive and those who see it as traditional and conservative. Additionally, there are also people who find it difficult to approach them because of their serious image.

We also asked participants to rate their level of interest in ethical food-related issues on a 5-point scale. The most common answers of "interested" or "somewhat interested" were "reducing food waste" (64.0%), "reducing excessive packaging" (58.1%), "consideration for consumer health" (55.2%), "local production and consumption" (54.3%), and "paying workers fair wages" (53.0%).

The fact that people have different perceptions is also one of the reasons why it is difficult to talk about "ethical."On the other hand, it means that each person can work on what they can do based on their interests.

■ Survey Overview
Survey method: Internet survey
Survey period: February 26th (Friday) to February 28th (Sunday), 2021
Survey area: Nationwide
Survey subjects: Men and women aged 16 to 69
Sample composition: 8 residential areas x gender x age group allocated according to demographic trends
Sample size: 3,000 people

*1 Unique data refers to over 70 million single IDs, over 5 billion purchase transactions per year, 6 billion types of product data handled by a network of 200,000 stores, 300 items of customer DNA persona data, offline and online movement and behavior data, media contact data, and CCCMK Group's original enhanced data.

■ Materials related to this matter

Established the "Ethical Consumption Research Group" to conduct research, development and presentations on ethical consumption for consumers, focusing on food.

■ Inquiries regarding this matter
CCCMK Holdings Co., Ltd. Public Relations: Ando
TEL: 03-6800-4464