• Korea Trade Review
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• v.41 no.5
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• pp.1-14
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• 2016

Consumers have been increasing their interests in firms' ethicality as well as in the features of the firms' products when they decide to purchase a certain product. Recently, fair trade is considered to be a type of ethical marketing in the business-to-consumer market. In this regard, the effects of fair trade-based marketing on firm performance have become the center of academic and managerial concerns. Despite this importance, few studies have investigated whether fair-trade is a source of competitive advantage or just a cost of doing business. The present research attempts to provide evidence of how fair trade-based marketing influences competitive advantage. Two experimental studies were conducted to explore consumers' purchase intention, which can be a proxy of competitive advantage, in a foreign product-consumption context. Drawing on the stakeholder theory, the first study was performed to examine the effects of fair trade marketing on consumers' purchase intention through a within-subjects design. In addition, building on the signal theory, the second study was executed to test the effects of a fair trade mark on consumers' purchase intention. The findings of the current research reveal that consumers prefer fair trade-based products to others and that when it comes to fair trade-certified products, consumers are more likely to purchase products with that certification than otherwise, even when those products are sold at higher costs than rival products. Interestingly, the results of this research present that there is a significant difference of consumers' purchase intention of a fair trade-based product between two different marketers. This implies that fair trade-based products should be differentially distributed and targeted at a certain type of consumers.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.358-383
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• 2015

The concept of 'carbon footprint' has been developed as a means of quantifying the specific emissions of the greenhouse gases (GHGs) that cause global warming. Although there are still neither clear definitions of the term nor rules for units or the scope of its estimation, it is broadly accepted that the carbon footprint is the total amount of GHGs, expressed as $CO_2$ equivalents, emitted into the atmosphere directly or indirectly at all processes of the production by an individual or organization. According to the ISO/TS 14067, the carbon footprint of a product is calculated by multiplying the units of activity of processes that emit GHGs by emission factor of the processes, and by summing them up. Based on this, 'carbon labelling' system has been implemented in various ways over the world to provide consumers the opportunities of comparison and choice, and to encourage voluntary activities of producers to reduce GHG emissions. In the agricultural sector, as a judgment basis to help purchaser with ethical consumption, 'low-carbon agricultural and livestock products certification' system is expected to have more utilization value. In this process, the 'cradle to gate' approach (which excludes stages for usage and disposal) is mainly used to set the boundaries of the life cycle assessment for agricultural products. The estimation of carbon footprint for the entire agricultural and forestry sector should take both removals and emissions into account in the "National Greenhouse Gas Inventory Report". The carbon accumulation in the biomass of perennial trees in cropland should be considered also to reduce the total GHG emissions. In order to accomplish this, tower-based flux measurements can be used, which provide a direct quantification of $CO_2$ exchange during the entire life cycle. Carbon footprint information can be combined with other indicators to develop more holistic assessment indicators for sustainable agricultural and forestry ecosystems.