Impakt’s partnership for the future

Impakt has begun a research partnership with the NYU Stern School of Business, where our faculty advisors Prof. Alixandra Barasch (Assistant Professor of Marketing, NYU Stern) and Prof. Raluca Ursu (Assistant Professor of Marketing, NYU Stern) have won NYU’s Center for Sustainable Business Research Grant. Together, we’re working on some groundbreaking scholarship on the economics of ethical consumerism through experimentation with Impakt’s alpha.

The Center for Sustainable Business’ mission is to track the financial case for sustainability; to shift from short-term, shareholder value creation to long-term, stakeholder value; and to engage consumers around sustainability. The faculty of NYU Stern believe that Impakt’s mission aligns with those values and we are very lucky to have Profs. Barasch and Ursu on board to help us realize this idea’s potential.

In the course of the study, our NYU faculty partners will develop a model of search and purchase behavior that accounts for a key component of consumer decision making: how does a consumer weigh the trade off between a product’s features (including brand and price) and its alignment with the her ethical priorities?

Impakt gives us a mechanism for measuring the price elasticity of morality: how much extra is a consumer willing to pay for goods aligned with their ethical attitudes? Is there a price point for the moral utility of purchasing with firm ethics in mind?

The data and models we will create in the course of this study will help business leaders de-risk ethical supply chain decisions and realize opportunities to implement sustainable practices into their business.

Impakt’s NYU team won the $9,000 grant to support volunteer recruitment and research expenses. This partnership brings us one step closer to fulfilling Impakt’s dual missions of making ethical awareness actionable for every individual and (2) communicating these preferences to the business community in a mutually productive way.