Most analysts agree that there’s a core of green consumers whose ecological concern is central to their world view and this concern is reflected in their purchases.  Green Meridian’s study Sustainability in the Mainstream identified a group of such consumers, dubbed Frequent Greens, which represent about one-fifth of adult women. But what of the other 80%? By Jeff Dubin

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What about the other four-fifths of women, which I’ll call “the mainstream” for simplicity’s sake?  How often do they think about a product’s environmental impact when they make a purchase?  The answer in a few words is “not very often.”  Only about 15% of these women say they think about a household cleaner’s environmental impact all or almost all of the time when making a purchase (17% for personal care products).  By contrast, 41% of mainstream women think about a household cleaner’s healthfulness all or almost all the time (52% for personal care products).
 
At this point, you might be thinking: “Yeah I get it.  The mainstream isn’t going to buy green products out of any concern for the planet and if I do tout a product’s green features, it better be in terms of how the product is healthier for the consumer and her family.”  As Jacquie Ottman advised in a recent post to her Green Marketing Blog, “to appeal to the mainstream, green products must appeal to more than just a consumer’s eco-conscience.  It must appeal in some way to their self-interest [i.e., health].”
 
Are most mainstream women that wrapped up in everyday concerns that the condition of the planet is often an afterthought, as Joel Makower non-judgmentally suggests in his book Strategies for the Green Economy? Makower says, “for most folks, saving the planetusually takes a back seat to saving the day.”  I agree but I would add that even though saving the planet may be taking a backseat, for some mainstream women environmental concerns are still in the car.  (My apologies for milking that analogy.)
 
Meet the Green Aspirants
One-third of the mainstream solidly feels that they would like to buy more green household cleaners and personal care products but have been unable to so far and I’ve called this group Green Aspirants.  Like their Frequent Green peers, many Green Aspirants (59%) are very worried about the shape of the environment and they are just as likely as Frequent Greens to strongly believe they can help the environment by buying green products. 
 
So far so good.  So where are Green Aspirants veering off the path to becoming Frequent Greens?  The answer is with obstacles that have nothing to do with a product’s greenness, such as the perceived high cost of green products, their poor availability, and to some extent, a feeling that green products are of lower quality than non-green ones. 
 
On the positive side for green household cleaners, somewhat moreGreen Aspirants than not see green cleaners as being superior on smell to non-green ones.  Cleaner smell factors very often into women’s purchasing decisions.  Not surprisingly, green cleaners’ lower environmental impact and greater product healthfulness were also cited as green product strengths by Green Aspirants. 
 
So what’s the problem?  The problem lies in the relative importance of different product features used by women to decide on a cleaner.  Product healthfulness, which frequently figures into the cleaner deliberations of over half the Green Aspirants, still lags product price and effectiveness in importance.  And what about the environmental impact of household cleaners?  Only a mere quarter of Green Aspirants say they often think about a cleaner’s environmental impact when making a cleaner purchase (vs. 62% of Frequent Greens).
 
So why talk about environmental impact at all with the mainstream?
A green marketer’s take away from this data likely might be: “I’m going to first work on improving Green Aspirants’ perceptions of the non-green features of my product.  Then, when I talk about my product’s greenness with these women, I’m going to focus more on how my product is healthier than on how the product helps the planet.  These women say they’re worried about the environment but it doesn’t matter if that concern can’t be translated into action.”
 
That would be the most logical explanation and it may be right.  Let’s just consider, though, an alternative possibility.  First, many people would agree that green products are often not in Green Aspirants’consideration set because of their high cost, poor availability, and sometimes perceptions of inferior quality.  So if the only products offering an environmental benefit are often not an option for Green Aspirants, then environmental impact often doesn’t even have a chance to be on the table. 
 
So why is a product’s healthfulness being considered fairly frequently by these women?  Because healthfulness is not a feature exclusive to green products.  For instance, a disinfectant can lay claim to being healthy for the household while few people would call most disinfectants green.  Products’ relative healthfulness, thus, has more opportunities to be considered by Green Aspirants than environmental impact.
 
 Shades of grey-green
 
However, even if green products were more accessible to Green Aspirants, I still think products’ environmental impacts would be trumped by several other product features in terms of relative importance.  But if parity or near-parity is achieved on these key features, I would argue that you will see the importance of environmental impact shoot up dramatically for Green Aspirants.  They care.  They’re worried.  But they currently see the barriers to buying green as often outweighing the benefits.
 
So, to sum up, I don’t think consumers neatly split into green and non-green groups.   There’s a grey-green group in the mainstream that will likely buy more green products partly to help the environment when the barriers to buying green are lowered.
 
What do you think?  Am I reaching for altruistic tendencies that aren’t there?

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Jeff is the founder of Green Meridian, a marketing research firm dedicated to helping green marketers succeed with both core green consumers and the mainstream. His firm recently completed a study of women’s green household cleaner and personal care product purchasing. Using the Green Product Adoption Framework™ he developed, Jeff identified drivers of green product use as well as several barriers preventing the wider adoption of green products. Jeff maintains a blog and an e-newsletter at http://www.greenmeridian.com/.