Morality Retail: The Case of Dutch Store, Crafted Stories, and Its Common Good Strategy

The UN Climate Conference (UNFCC) COP 28 marks a landmark deal to ‘transition away’ from fossil fuels (Morton, Harvey, Lakhani and Carrington, 2023), and at the European Parliament, Moretti MEP (2023) declared that the fashion industry can take decisive action in line with global climate goals. In a world that is becoming ever more globally fragile (Amed and Berg, 2022) with these geo-political tensions, social issues and context-driving behaviours, fashion buyers need to create ‘sharpened strategies’ (Amed and Berg, 2022). Retailers are balancing planet, legislation, profit, and customer demand, and looking to do this through transparent dialogue across the supply chain and across internal to external channels. Tactics include energising social conscience and accountability as exhibited in purchase and promotional funnels, through tools of mission statements, manifestos and messaging that communicate stories of ‘common good’.

Many consumers are becoming increasingly conscientious in their purchase habits, with a new class of ethical consumer prepared to place their money where their morals are, and connect through local issues, a sense of responsibility and social activism. Social commentator, Naomi Klein has noted that ‘some of the voices of moral clarity are coming from the very young’ (2014: 464), and demographics such as Gen Z particularly ‘possess a moral compass’ (Oliver Wyman Forum, 2023).

This research proposes that a phenomenon of ‘morality retail’ is becoming established, with values such as integrity and common good placed at the centre of collectively invested storytelling by buyer, maker and consumer. The critical, loaded unit of communication is the social life of the material objects as they ‘leak, transform and interact with what is around them’ (Küchler, 2015: 272), transforming into a ‘moral statement’ (Fog, Budtz, Munch and Blanchette, 2010: 34). This research questions how artefacts become social instruments and ‘objects of affection’ (Berger, 2010), utilising ‘meaning which overflows the object’s use’ (Barthes, 1988: 182), that in turn creates a transnational flow of morality.