September
2000
Whatever
Happened to Green Consumers?
By Joel Makower
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Here’s a pop quiz: Two products are sitting next
to each other in a store. They’re practically identical, but one
is environmentally better—let’s say it’s recycled, recyclable,
biodegradable, less toxic, or contains less packaging. Both are priced
about the same. Which would you buy?
For those with even a scintilla of eco-consciousness, the answer is
a no-brainer: the "greener" one is preferable.
So, given that public-opinion surveys report that roughly three Americans
in four call themselves "environmentalists," and that marketing
studies tell us that roughly 7 in 10 consumers would gladly choose
the
greener product over its less-green counterpart, why has green consumerism
remained a largely marginal aspect of shopping?
The chasm between green concern and green consumerism is, for me, one
of the more curious and frustrating aspects of the environmental movement.
For all the activism and consciousness-raising, for all the thinking
locally and acting globally, the overwhelming majority of consumers
haven’t exactly demanded greener products. Only a relative handful
of consumers regularly go out of their way to make environmentally
preferable
buying choices.
It seems the so-called green consumer movement was one of those well-intended
passing fancies, a testimony to Americans’ never-ending quest
for simple, quick, and efficient solutions to complex problems.
What happened?
Here are five reasons why the environment has failed to become a
mainstream market force.
First: there’s no mandate. Though polls tell us that most consumers
prefer greener products, the polls are misleading: they fail to ask
the right questions. If you pose a question as a green-versus-ungreen
choice, as I did at the beginning of this column, the answer is obvious:
everyone prefers the greener choice. But if you probe deeper into consumer
attitudes, the real answer is that consumers will choose the greener
product—IF it doesn’t cost more, comes from a brand they know
and trust, can be purchased at stores where they already shop, doesn’t
require a significant change of habits to use, and has at least the
same level of quality, performance, and endurance as the less-green
alternative.
That’s a high hurdle for any product. No wonder mainstream consumers
turned off to environmentally conscious shopping.
Second: the public is dazed and confused. Shopping with Mother Earth
in mind is no mean feat, even for the most savvy of shoppers. After
all, understanding the environmental implications of something as simple
as paper versus plastic shopping bags requires digesting a fair amount
of science, some of which is inconclusive, contradictory, or simply
arguable. Both, after all, come from limited, declining resources,
can
be made from recycled material, and can be recycled. Which is better?
Even the scientists don’t agree. (Of course, the greenest bag
is the reusable organic cotton or hemp bag you use thousands of times
before
it must be turned into compost, but that notion rarely gets considered
at the end of a checkout line.)
Third: people lack perspective. Similarly, most people don’t have
a clue about the relative environmental impacts of the things they do
every day. For example, a good many self-described green consumers don’t
seem to find irony in jumping into their poorly tuned, gas-guzzling
sport utility vehicles with a cold engine and underinflated tires to
drive a couple miles out of their way in bumper-to-bumper traffic in
order to purchase their favorite brand of recycled paper towels. Will
buying the right laundry detergent or ice cream make the world safe
for gas-powered lawn mowers, leaf blowers, and chain saws? You make
the call.
The whole notion of green consumerism unwittingly contributes to this
lack of perspective. It implies that greener purchases can help "save
the earth." The dirty little secret of green consumerism is that
we’re not likely to shop our way to environmental health.
Fourth: companies making greener products are afraid to speak up. With
good reason. Those early purveyors of "degradable trash bags"
and "ozone-friendly aerosols" got their wrists slapped, so
marketers are understandably gun-shy on making environmental claims,
particularly those that are scientifically debatable. And most companies
aren’t environmentally pure, so to call attention to one’s
green goods risks calling attention to one’s ecological skeletons.
Better to keep one’s corporate mouth shut, right?
And, finally, fifth: green benefits aren’t always evident. Many
environmental initiatives that companies take don’t show up on
product labels. For example, Anheuser-Busch saves millions of pounds
of aluminum a year by shaving 1/8" off the diameter of its beer
cans, though they don’t put eco-labels on cans of Busch and Budweiser.
Nonetheless, they’re having a significant impact when you consider
the energy and resource inputs of aluminum, and the energy savings from
trucking lighter-weight cans. It’s certainly a greater environmental
contribution than that of consumers pondering "paper versus plastic."
For now, it seems green consumerism is destined to be limited to the
roughly 10 percent to 12 percent of the marketplace that pollsters
tell
us are willing to regularly seek out and buy green products, regardless
of how much more they cost or what lengths one must go to find them.
Despite its frustrations, green consumerism remains a powerful, largely
untapped tool for environmental change. The fact is, as I pointed out
a decade ago, every time we open our wallets, we cast a vote, for or
against the environment. And the marketplace isn’t a democracy:
It doesn’t take 51 percent voting in one direction to effect change.
A relatively small number of consumers can be a potent force. The model
works. We just need to make it work harder.
Joel Makower is a journalist and best-selling author.
He is editor of "The Green Business Letter," a monthly newsletter
on corporate environmental responsibility. Makower is president of Green
Business Network, producers of GreenBiz.com, a comprehensive web portal
on business and the environment. This article is reprinted courtesy
of the Center for a New American Dream’s Syndicated Column Service.
For information, visit www.newdream.org
or call 1-877-68-DREAM.
