Sustainable Luxury: The Effect of Corporate Social Responsibility Strategy on Luxury Consumption Motivations

Luxury, generally associated with hedonism, excess, and ostentation, has been often considered as incompatible with Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), which is generally associated with sobriety, moderation, and ethics. Nevertheless, increased interest in sustainability has led more and more luxury companies to integrate CSR into their marketing strategies. The present chapter helps to advance knowledge on the compatibility between luxury and sustainability by (a) describing cases of luxury companies involved in CSR activities and (b) empirically testing whether consumers might react positively to luxury companies’ CSR initiatives. Our results show that consumers’ reactions to luxury brands’ CSR initiatives depend on whether consumers mainly buy luxury goods for internal (i.e., for their individual tastes) or external (i.e., related to their willingness to show status) motivations.