Environmental and corporate social responsibility, green consumerism and firms' strategic behavior

Awareness of social and environmental issues has considerably increased among consumers, firms and policy makers over the last few decades. Existing research recognizes that consumers’ social responsibility, motivated by moral and social norms, results in pro-social and pro-environmental purchase behavior. Moreover, there is large evidence of an increasing trend of firms that integrate social and environmental concerns in their business conduct, which can be summarized as Environmental and Corporate Social Responsibility (ECSR). This project aims at studying, from both a theoretical and an empirical viewpoint, the consequences and the bidirectional effects of these two aspects of social and environmental awareness. We argue that the emergence of pro-social and ‘green’ consumer behavior plays a crucial role in letting firms acknowledge their social responsibility, which turns into higher profits. The resulting lower pollution level and more ethical consumption and production cause benefits accruing to consumers and society. In such environments, the policy makers may try to influence the social responsibility of both consumers and firms in order to induce the desired market outcomes, which calls for a public policy on ECSR. Our project aims at exploring, both from a theoretical and empirical viewpoint, the interactions among the actors with social and environmental concerns in a market - firms, consumers, government and non-governmental organizations – and evaluate their contribution to a cleaner environment and higher well-being of communities and society. The research unfolds in six steps:
 1. a methodological part on the definition and the identification of the various dimensions of consumer social and environmental responsibility and the initiatives of ECSR;
 2. a theoretical investigation of the effects of consumers’ environmental awareness/responsibility induced by environmentalism on the ‘green’ products’ choices and firms’ strategic behavior in imperfectly competitive markets;
 3. an empirical investigation of the impact of political activism and social media on consumers’ environmental awareness and consumption choices;
 4. a theoretical analysis of the role of social and environmental consumers’ awareness in inducing socially responsible choices of business;
 5. the impact of the adoption of ECSR practices on firms’ strategic behavior and the market equilibrium outcomes; 6. both a positive and a normative part concerning the role of governance – of firms and institutions – in inducing, through awareness campaigns, pro-social and pro-environmental consumer behavior and good practices in ECSR.