Thesis Pieces: Millennial Money is Political Capital

One of the most popular forms of civic expression among Millennials is using buying power to influence companies and support causes. Most of the work on these forms of participation focus on boycotting, halting purchases to send a message to a company, and buycotting, making purchases that support one's beliefs or benefit a charitable cause. Another form of this is socially-conscious (or responsible) investing, through-which investors buy stock in perceived socially conscious companies and at time provide start-up capital to entrepreneurs interested in starting socially responsible businesses. I use the term conscientious consumerism to encapsulate all of these activities. This post will focus on how Millennials are finding potential in the private sector to work toward curing many social ills. They are communicating that belief through conscientious consumerism, and I hope business begins to listen.

Millennials are tuned-in to the power of their buying choices. Forty-nine percent of Millennials say their
buying choices have been affected by political and social concerns. They pay attention to the actions of corporations, and they seek to use their buying power to incentivize companies to make socially-responsible decisions. Eighty-eight percent of those surveyed in an international study of Millennials conducted by Deloitte (2014) strongly agreed that the private sector has the potential to meet the challenge of unemployment, 86% think there is potential for the private sector to address environmental issues and education.

The survey demonstrated that Millennials are seeing potential in business's role in addressing social ills, but much of this derives from the belief that business has often been the cause. In terms of perceived net impact on environmental degradation, the respondents marked business at -25%, meaning that a quarter of respondents saw the private sector's impact as negative. In terms of the most important issues the world is facing (issues the respondents most strongly agreed were pressing), business was perceived as significantly more responsible than government in the areas of climate change and resource scarcity (Deloitte, 2014).

This awareness, in combination with readily-available information regarding corporate actions and impacts, is driving Millennials to use their buying power with boycotts and buycotts. Conscientious consumerism was one of the topics covered in my informal survey (n=39). This activity was one of the most popular forms of participation, with a majority of the respondents (67.6%) stating that they have buycotted, and 37.8% stating that they have boycotted companies. Buycotting was second only to volunteering (70.3%) in citizenship expression. One respondent discussed his socially-motivated buying choices:

 “Since the passage of ACA, I haven't purchased Papa John's pizza. This was due to the fact that the Papa John's CEO cut employee work hours to limit full-time employees and legally be able to deny them health coverage under the purview of the new law. I refuse to financially contribute to a business that would sooner blame partisan politics for economic motives than take care of the employees that run his (extremely profitable) business from the ground up.”

http://www.marketintelligencecenter.com/articles/405005

Technology is facilitating many efforts on this front. New mobile apps are being developed to help consumers make conscientious choices right in the store. For example, the “Buycott” app helps consumers find non-GMO foods by scanning the bar-codes before purchase. This instantaneous ability to change consumption decisions will have a powerful impact on society (O'Conner, 2013).

Socially-conscious investing takes many forms, depending on the involvement and monitoring of the investor. In general, socially responsible investing promotes environmental stewardship, consumer protection, human rights, and diversity through investors buying stock in designated “responsible” companies. Socially-conscious funds like the Amana Income Fund and the Calvert Conservation Allocation are just a sampling of the diverse and myriad options available to investors seeking to put their retirement money in funds that share their values. Each fund has its own set of standards, but mainly they seek to fulfill a social good and make a profit. Though Millennials are not investing a great deal currently, there is a great deal of potential in this space once more members of this generation are securely employed.


Thesis full text, accompanying white paper, and sources are available upon request.