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When GreenFactor interviewed consumers in September and October about whether they would pay more for a green product, 57% said no. That still means 43% were willing to pay more and when you drill down to age groups, 54% of all 25-34 year-olds said the would pay more.
The survey was taken before many of us were painfully aware of our new collective economic reality. It was before many of us realized the bailout wasn't going to be the fixer. The survey occurred in the days when most of were still blissfully ignorant that we have been in a recession since December 2007.
If GreenFactor interviewed the same people today what do you think the numbers would be? Has your commitment to buying green changed at all since the economic meltdown?
It is easy to put your money behind a cause when you believe you have the money to support the cause.But when money is tight, when it means buying green may mean going without something else,will commitments waver?
Ad Age reports on a study by Duke University's Fuqua School of Business which seems to indicate the wavering has already begun.
... marketing that is "beneficial for society" or that minimizes the impact on the environment ranked at the bottom of five priorities listed by respondents for the next 12 months.
The shift seemed to reflect changing priorities on the part of their customers. "If [consumers] can't afford the product, or it's not the quality you want, [they're] not going to be focusing on its environmental friendliness," said Christine Moorman, the professor who led the project surveying top marketers at 72 companies culled from both the Fortune 1000 and Forbes' 200 top small firms.
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Add to that a series of articles claiming that the green business bubble has burst. From Anna Kuchment at Newsweek,
First there was the dotcom bust of the late 1990s, then came the
real-estate bubble that's deflating before our eyes. Next up: the green
bubble. Alternative energy ventures have received a lot of great press,
heavy investment and lip service from politicians in the last couple of
years, but many of the nascent green industry's balance sheets are
beginning to bleed red.
Spiegel Online is featuring a BusinessWeek piece by Mark Scott that says cheaper oil is diluting the demand for energy efficiency in Europe.
At the same time, the rising cost of capital is making it harder for
both consumer and suppliers of alternative energy equipment and
services to finance new green projects. The impact will be felt
especially acutely by small, independent manufacturers and electricity
producers, some of whom could go out of business or be forced to sell
out to larger companies.
Despite the reports of bursting green business bubbles there is another contingent that says green is here to stay in corporate America. As recently as early September, in the days before the bailout dominated all business news, Alyse Taub covered a lecture at Columbia University by Professor Geoffrey Heal. The topic: "Corporate Environmentalism: Doing Well by Doing Good."
"Without meaning to sound so cynical," Heal said. "We can't help but
think, what's in it for them?" The answer, explained Heal, is that
lately there is plenty in it for them from both the consumer end and
the investor end. Heal talks about how even financial analysts have
been taking into consideration Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) reports
when making investment decisions and valuing companies. These reports
are released by the EPA every year, and they measure how much pollution
the company releases that year.Many investors and investment firms, especially UBS, fear that
companies with high TRIs are at a greater risk for lawsuits and are
thus risky investments.
But as employees face layoffs, as the survivors face slashed budgets with little money for travel or hiring consultants,the question is,'will green be shelved until companies get back into the black?'
There was a time that green advocates tried to convince corporations to be greener with the message, "It's the right thing to do." These days those advocates are saying, " It's good for the bottom line and good for the environment."
It's a topic that Joel Makower, Executive Editor of GreenBiz.com has been discussing a lot.Makower says in the past "environmental managers were usually among the first to be tossed overboard in the name of cost-cutting"
He believes things are different now for three reasons: commitments,cost-cutting and customers.
Makower also believes that reports saying the
