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The purpose of this paper to report on the role of luxury value perceptions and ethical concerns in consumers’ environmentally significant behaviour and purchase intent for genuine leather products.

Non-probability sampling was done and 429 South African males and females, aged 26 years and older and who fell in a household income bracket that allowed them to purchase genuine leather products, completed a structured questionnaire during September 2016.

The study determined that South African consumers’ strong functional and individual luxury value perceptions drive their above-average purchase intent for genuine leather products. Strong individual value perceptions correlated negatively with their purchase intent. Respondents’ expressed strong ethical concerns but almost never participate in environmentally significant behaviour.

Findings have implications for the leather industry and retailers and brands who would like to enter the South African luxury leather market. Due to the sampling method, findings can, however, not been generalised to the total population.

The leather industry and leather brands should market themselves with the message that the highest pro-environmental and ethical standards have been maintained and that their products should therefore fulfil important individual and functional value perceptions.

This study was the first of its kind about the multi-cultural South African leather market’s luxury value perceptions, ethical concerns and environmentally significant behaviour.

Moving further north in California to the San Mateo Peninsula we arrive at California's premier high technology industrial zone familiarly and universally known as Silicon Valley. The area comprises a chain of communities in the Santa Clara Valley south of San Francisco, including Santa Clara, San Jose, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Cupertino, Los Altos, Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Redwood City and San Carlos. In excess of 1,500 companies are based here, constituting about one fifth of US high‐tech industry and population has increased from 290,000 in 1950 to its present 1·3 million or more.

Profiles the development of the project IWW/Earth First Local 1, a group which brought loggers and environmentalists together in an attempt to combine labour and ecology issues. Describes anarchosyndicalist ideas that formed the basis of this alliance, suggesting that these have some merit for present day ecologists. Considers the common ground shared by labour and ecology movements and presents some learnings from the project for future mainstream environmental policies.

Research has found a subgroup of conservative white males have lower perceptions of risk across a variety of environmental and health hazards. Less research has looked at the views of these “low risk” individuals in group interactions. Through qualitative analysis of a technology deliberation, we note that white men expressing low risk views regarding technologies for energy and the environment also often express high social risks around potential loss of control. We argue these risk perceptions reflect identification with corporate concerns, usually framed in opposition to government and mirroring arguments made by conservative organizations. We situate these views within the broader cultural struggle over who has the power to name and address risks.

Through this column I will be exploring the field of environmental information and its provision in this country. I will do this by tackling the subject from the user's point of view: each month I will pick a different user (or potential user) group, and discuss resources, services and organisations which can be of use to this group. Just to avoid any charge of repetitiveness, I will occasionally diverge from this pattern to discuss other issues.

Reports on the OCLC Users’ Council meeting of February 5‐7, 1996. Issues discussed included nominations for the board of trustees, the OCLC president’s report, the Users’ Council executive committee report and reports on users of electronic information. Also under discussion were a number of strategies for the future.