Sustainable consumption has become a crucial factor to consider for both consumers and manufacturing firms. Green marketing practices, or marketing activities aimed at decreasing the impact on the environment, have been incorporated into many business plans to combat old habits of wastefulness and pollution. One very popular method that has come to prominence over the recent years is eco-labeling of products and services. Eco-labels are logos that represent that a product or service has met standardized criteria set by a certifying organization and that it is deemed a sustainable option in its product category. The focus of this study will center-on well-known and established eco-labels in the Swedish market, namely the Swan, Bra Miljöval, KRAV, EU-Ecolabel and the Marine Stewardship Council eco-labels. Eco-labels are tools for communication which can be used to facilitate the practice of sustainable consumption. However, there are many factors that influence the consumer’s ability to understand the message of the eco-label which in turn can affect their capacity to adopt the sustainable behavior. The purpose of this study is to determine if Swedish consumers understand the eco-label’s message and if this message affects their green purchasing. These results were related to message quality as defined by the International Standards Organization 14063 standard for environmental communication (2004 cited in Strömdahl, 2005, p. 15; Von Ahn & Wikström, 2005, p. 33-34) and other notable factors found from a literature review. The following research questions were answered: • Do consumers understand the message of an eco-label?      o What are the factors related to understanding the eco-label? • Do awareness and understanding affect purchase behavior of and eco-label?      o What are the factors related to the purchase of eco-labeled products? A quantitative approach has been used in this research project and a survey has been administered at supermarkets in the Umeå area. To confirm the message of the eco-labels, a semi-structured interview was conducted with the issuing organizations prior to designing the questionnaire. A total of 152 responses were collected from the survey and analyzed with frequency distributions, independent sample t-tests and contingency tables where a significance level of chi-square of .05 or lower was required. The results of the study indicate that customer understanding and purchase behavior varied by each eco-label. Message quality can have a significant impact on understanding of the eco-label. Also, other personal factors were related to understanding and purchase behavior with nationality giving evidence of the strongest relationship.

Aim: The concept of CSR is getting more attention among various fields but there has been a lack of research in enhancing the awareness of CSR within the field of retailing. In order to fill this gap, the aim of this study is to investigate the significance of CSR and green marketing (ecological labels) in the business of retailing while evaluating the affect of it on consumer behavior.   Method: Case study research method is opted for this study to answer “why” and “how” questions. Furthermore, quantitative data has been collected through in store and online customer interview. The research data is analysed by using Microsoft Office Excel.   Result & Conclusions: The result shows that CSR is well incorporated and practiced by ICA Kvantum, AB. Their business philosophy is focused on customer, product, environment, diversity and community. They provide environmental and organic products by abiding the rules and law of goods production that also protects the environment. Moreover, the quantitative study reveals that Swedish female consumer between the ages of 26-35 are more responsible towards environment. It also shows that most of the consumers are still buying conventional (non-ecological) products and majority of them don’t check eco-labels before purchasing but they are willing to pay more for ecological and organic foods. Thus, CSR and green marketing affects consumer buying behavior through different ways.   Suggestions for future research: The similar research can be performed by adopting qualitative data from company’s experts to record their perspective about CSR and green marketing. Moreover, it would be interesting to investigate multiple retail companies operating in different cities. Furthermore, it could give innovative results, if the study investigates the link of trust and loyalty on consumer behavior, as they are the key components in consumer purchase decision.   Contribution of the study: This study identifies and explains the concept of CSR and the important elements of CSR in grocery retailing. The novel concept of green marketing and ecological products has been studied in relation to consumer behavior. The investigation of CSR and green marketing on consumer behavior is a unique combination which has not investigated extensively within the field of grocery retailing.

The increasing threats to the environment have led the consumers to enhance their concern for environment. As a result, consumers nowadays intend to purchase environmentally friendly products as part of showing their concern for environment. This changing trend of consumer behavior has also driven the businesses to act accordingly and introduce sustainability within business process including production, offerings and distribution with an objective of protecting environment. Apart from the environmental benefits, getting involved in the environmentally friendly activities also enable the businesses to enjoy higher profit margins, positive brand image, higher employee commitment and above all competitive advantage. Current literature shows that, because of enormous benefits businesses are also getting involved in transforming sustainable consumption through different marketing activities to avoid poor sales of green products. Brand generated contents, defined as contents shared and controlled by the business itself on its owned or earned platforms, is often used by the marketers and businesses to share information or justifying premium pricing of green products. The primary purpose of this study is to develop insights and understand the relationship between different factors driven by brand generated contents and green purchase intention. The study is implemented by a quantitative study where 156 respondents have shared their perceptions and thoughts related to different factors of brand generated contents on social media platforms that they perceive to influence their purchase intentions to green products. Even though green consumerism and green purchase intention is not a new concept within field of research, connecting it with brand generated content is a completely new phenomenon. Existing literature suggests that researchers have tried to measure the green purchase intention mostly based on uncontrollable factors by marketers or different traditional consumer theory. Some other researchers have also tried to connect green purchase intention with user-generated content completely overlooking its counterpart, brand generated content. Five constructs have been developed based on existing literature: knowledge awareness, perceived concern for environment, perceived product value, attitude and trust of contents. A survey questionnaire was developed with three sections- demographic section to comprehend the respondents, behavioral section to understand purchase behavior of respondents related to green products and final section to understand the perception of consumers. The finding demonstrates interesting insights with perceived concern for environment and attitude to be positively significant and trust of content to be negatively significant to green purchase intentions. However, the finding is believed to assist the marketing practitioners and businesses to develop marketing strategies for green products and develop contents accordingly. Furthermore, the study aims to contribute theoretically within the field of brand generated content and green purchase intention by filling the gap and linking each other. Finally, the study has significant potential of contributing to society by helping in promoting environmentally friendly products and protecting the environment.