Women are more interested in ‘green’ products than men. Going green is very popular today, affecting our homes and lifestyles. With respect to your home, green and energy efficiency are the 2 hot topics, so you'll be seeing lots more about both these trends in many different places.
One problem with popular trends is everyone wants to participate and often, the marketing (read “packaging”) makes claims about being green when nothing about the product inside has changed. Take time to read about green and you'll be able to decipher some of the labeling and make more intelligent decisions about what to buy.
Green Statistics Say It's Real
You might wonder after reading about many of the actions home owners can take, who is really doing this? You know saving energy and protecting the environment is important but why pay more? There are companies starting to publish research on how quickly consumers are changing their buying habits.
Don't forget that a lot of energy saving habits also don't cost anything, i.e. turning the lights off when you leave a room. You can (should) also start to consider reusing products you already own before you buy something new, and then you will save money too. It's also possible
to contribute to energy savings and/or green initiatives to improve our global environment, based on reading lots of newsletters, websites, etc. I don't have the resources to conduct market research, so I was pleased to find the following press release and data showing the top environmentally friendly products that people are buying.
I was also pleased to see that heading up NPD's list of environmentally friendly products were those made using recycling materials as this reduces our impact on the environment. This is a very positive change from today's economy that I hope we don't forget. A big thanks to NPD Group for their report, Green 2008: Consumer Attitudes and Behaviors. Here are some of the key messages I found in the report.
- More than 50% of consumers consider themselves extremely or very interested in environmentally-friendly products.
- Women are more interested in ‘green’ products than men (57% vs. 47%) … and are significantly more likely to purchase green products even if they have to pay a little more.
- NPD recommends that manufacturers and retailers need to increase their efforts to educate the consumer so they understand the benefits of green and what makes a product green (this is very important as many of today's products are packaged with a green message but they're not really green).
- Consumers appear to be focusing on those improvements that have an immediate return, i.e. why recycling and CFL lightbulbs are at the top of the list
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