Armchairs and Cocktail Parties

We’ve just released our first in a series of Eco Pulse reports.  Though the study delivers multiple insights, it was designed to answer two key questions:  how do consumers define green in their minds and how much will they pay for it?

What we learned is that, overall, the American population the equivalent of a giant living room of armchair environmentalists — able to sit on the sidelines and talk about all that should be done but not actually doing much themselves.  And we learned that they understand enough about green to get through a cocktail party conversation and then quickly change the subject before it gets too deep.

Case in point: 49% of the population says a company’s environmental record is very important in their purchasing decisions.  But only 21% say they’ve actually chosen a product over another based on a company’s environmental record.  And only 7% of the population can actually name the product they bought.

So as we go about setting sales goals for green products, it’s important to remember that this market is still in its infancy and very much still in the beginning wedge of the adoption lifecycle bell curve.  And the products that win out in this space will be the ones with an intuitive, authentic enough claim that an average consumer can easily chat about while balancing on the arm of a La-Z-Boy, pinot grigio in hand.