Luxury industry as a pioneer for sustainability through improved communication: A consumer perspective

Abstract

Sustainability has become a pervasive issue for luxury businesses ever since the tendency towards mass luxury production. In this context, the emerging middle class from the Global South positions itself as the target consumers for the current landscape. The purpose of this article is to examine how luxury brand marketers can balance sustainability measures and communications while maintaining their exclusivity in this evolving market. Prior research suggests that consumers do not regard luxury and sustainability as compatible, whilst the concept of ‘sustainable luxury’ is gaining attention among researchers and businesses. This article explores how this apparent contradiction, or even paradox, can be negotiated to implement sustainable luxury in practice. Existing research has highlighted the growing yet fragmented evidence on the new wave of consumers from the Global South, in particular India and Latin America. Twenty-one semi-structured interviews were conducted with the Indian middle class followed by a thematic analysis. This article looked into three major aspects: (1) the existing knowledge on luxury‐sustainability relationship, (2) the existence of an attitude‐behaviour gap, and (3) the benefits of improved communication from businesses to consumers. A new consumer perspective emerged from the study, which can be added to existing literature, namely a positive correlation (rather than an inherent contradiction) between the two concepts of ‘luxury’ and ‘sustainability’. This can make the luxury industry a pioneer for sustainability through improved, nuanced communication. The positive correlation was based on consumers’ belief in buying a certain package when purchasing a luxury product that includes sustainability as a highly desirable inherent trait due to its high price and nature of the concept. The findings further highlight a shift in consumers’ mind that demands improved communication in the form of grounded measures and two-way dialogue to tackle lack of transparency and trust on the industry. Increased communication is identified to be a positive influence on consumer purchase decisions if convincing forms of communication are included. By adding a second viewpoint, this article is seen as bridging the gap between the scholarly perspective of convergence (sustainable luxury) and the consumer perspective of controversy (contradiction). The discussion elaborates on what it means for theory and practice, and some pragmatic recommendations are made in the conclusion. This future is mainly based on communication, which helps to break down the luxury‐sustainability contradiction and the existing attitude‐behaviour gap.