Towards Consumer Social Responsibility

Aim/purpose – This paper aims at investigating the existence of Consumer Social Responsibility (CSR), legally based on the second-generation EU consumerist legislation, which affects companies deeply in fulfilling socially responsible choices of business. Design/methodology/approach – The method followed-up of CSR is a bottom-up perspective inspired by matching corporate social responsibility with consumer social responsibility. Among consumers a strategic role is entrusted to the ‘state’ that is named in this paper ‘superconsumer’. Findings – It is argued that a juridical consumer responsibility may be affirmed as part of a European strategy to inspire voluntary sustainable choices by corporations, imposing a social responsibility for consumers from the bottom. Pieces of evidence are collected throughout three sectors of EU legislation: financial market, energy environment and public procurement. Research implication/limitation – The implication of this research consists in drawing a path of inference from the well-known rights of consumers to their duties including consumers’ social responsibilities. The most significant limitation of the study is its restriction on investigating only three sample domains among larger sectors within EU consumer law and preferably Italian law. A subsequent development of this research will fill this gap by broadening the investigation field. Originality/value/contribution – There are no previous studies in Italy and in European literature concerning the role of consumer law in affecting CSR and, more generally, in the European juridical literature on CSR about the influence of consumers’ legal responsibility on socially responsible choices of companies. In addition, it leads on to the original idea of the existence of juridical consumers’ duties inferred by consumers’ rights as the inseparable effect of consumers’ empowerment.