When it comes to conscious consumption, it appears that shoppers from developing countries in the Asia Pacific region are more conscientious than their counterparts in richer nations. A recently released survey by Mastercard, the Mastercard Ethical Spending and Charitable Giving Survey, found that Chinese consumers were most likely to buy products from ethical businesses with 75.2 per cent of respondents saying so.
Survey participants from Thailand (67.6 per cent), Malaysia (65.7 per cent) and the Philippines (64.6 per cent) also ranked high when it came to choosing to buy ethically.
Meanwhile, shoppers from developed countries were the least inclined to spend at responsible businesses. Japan performed the worst with a paltry 20.4 per cent of consumers saying they would buy better, while only 28 per cent and 29.1 per cent of Australian and Singaporean shoppers, respectively, were convinced of the need to do so.