Going green together: Environmental CSR communication in relation to climate change and its effect on consumer social responsibility

More than ever, corporations play a crucial and unavoidable role in tackling climate change through for example shifting consumer perceptions towards climate friendly consumption patterns. Nevertheless, campaigns that incite consumers to make green choices and affiliate themselves with an environmentally conscious brand or product are scarce. This is partially due to the fact that little research has examined what techniques in environmental CSR messages effectively move consumers to purchase, affiliate with or trust an ecofriendly product or company. Along with this gap in literature, the array of consumer attitudes and behavior beyond purchase intention that environmental CSR communication can affect needs to be extended. This study’s aim was to shed more light on how, in relation to the current climate discussion, companies advertising their green products can incite consumers to make more eco-friendly purchase choices and gain their trust and advocacy with the help of environmental CSR messages. Through a quantitative online experiment with ten conditions (N = 304), the following research question was examined: To what extent do advertisement (neutral vs. climate responsibility vs. sustainable use of natural resources), message style (discreet vs. uniform vs. over-communicating) and praise tactics (consumer praise vs. company praise) in environmental CSR messages affect consumer trust, purchase intention and consumer advocacy? In line with previous research findings, the results showed that in order to make consumers purchase a green product and trust and advocate for a company, it is best to use a uniform, congruent message style, whereas greenwashing techniques were the least effective. Contrary to this study’s expectations, employing rhetorical praise tactics and addressing specific environmental CSR actions to advertise a product did not evoke significantly higher levels of consumer trust, advocacy and purchase intention. Moreover, consumers’ level of perceived intrinsic and extrinsic company motivation for engaging in CSR actions moderates the relationship between CSR messages and consumer attitudes and behaviors, as well as level of consumers’ environmental engagement and environmental advocacy. These findings add to previous research on environmental CSR communication by narrowing down the circumstances under which environmental CSR messages are effective, helping companies to affiliate consumers with their goals towards ecological sustainability in the long term. Additionally, the results call for a re-examination of using greenwashing techniques, as well as highlight the importance of action-message congruency, transparency and intrinsic or extrinsic motivation as central building blocks for a truly effective environmental CSR message.